


Love Letters from Zelda Rubenstein

by scarletjedi



Category: due South
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Complete, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-07 04:46:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1885629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletjedi/pseuds/scarletjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I don’t get it,” I said. “They’re harassing him by faking a <i>haunting</i>?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>“That’s certainly one explanation,” Fraser said, hitting the carriage release lever. “There is another.”</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>“What?” I asked, flipping to the pages about Shane’s team. “That his team is harassing him?” They seemed to be the only other ones who would benefit.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>“That Mr. Shane is really being haunted.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ray

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta proxydialogue, whom I made watch Due South just so that she could edit this fic. You're Welcome, my dear.

Frase and I strode into the bullpen, shoulder to shoulder, step in sync, duet-ing to the max because we had just done it _again_. Set-up, knocked-down, bag-it, tag-it, _done_ , and I was riding high on it, practically flying out of my skin, when Frannie stopped Fraser with a hand on his chest, which stopped me like a dog on a chain, and asked:

“Fraser, you don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

I, idiot that I am, laughed my stupid laugh, the one that sounds like a dying seal, because of _course_ Mr. Logic doesn’t believe in ghosts. I mean, sure, Fraser believed in a lot of—what would he call em? _intangibles_ —but those were things like duty, and justice, and that curling was a sport. He didn’t believe in _the paranormal._

Except, instead of just saying “hell no” using way too many words in that way he has when he wants to _hide_ the fact that he just said “hell no”, Fraser did that neck-crack thing that makes me think he’s going to need a _very_ good chiropractor sooner rather than later, that he only does when he needs a moment to collect himself because _something_ has thrown his train of thought off the tracks and _holy shit._ Fraser believed in ghosts.

“I don’t know if _believe_ is the correct word, Francesca, if you mean, and I think you do, as something taken on faith with a religious or superstitious context. I certainly do not _discount_ the possibility, and such areas of the paranormal do have a certain amount of field data, research and the like—certainly as much if not more than certain areas of particle physics, for example—and I think it would be safe to say that I think of ghosts the same way that I think of the Higgs-Boson, or the God-Particle—“

“It’s all bullshit,” Dewey interrupted. “Ain’t no such thing as ghosts. It’s all strings and mirrors.”

Frannie put her hand on her hip and smacked him in the chest with the file in her hand. “Don’t be such a ‘no-sayer.’”

Jesus. “No-sayer.” “You mean ‘naysayer,’ Frannie?” 

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid Ray. Who says ‘neigh?’ Horses. Nobody here is a horse, except for maybe Dewey.” 

“Hey!”

“It’s ‘no-sayer’ as in someone who says no?” She turned and simpered--God--at Fraser. “Right, Fraser?” 

Fraser thumbed his eyebrow, tilting his head to the left, “Actually, Francesca, the term ‘naysayer’ is correct, in that ‘nay’ spelled “N.A.Y” is an archaic form of ‘no,’ as opposed to ‘neigh’ ‘N.E.I.G.H’ which is the sound for Horses.” He cleared his throat, dropping his hand and putting both arms behind his back. 

“Detective Dewey,” Fraser said, “I believe you are referring to the practice of the fakes séance, which, while I do agree that a large number of the practitioners are frauds—well, as Hamlet once said, ‘There are more things, Horatio, in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’"

“Oh, Shakespeare,” Frannie said, leaning in and crossing her arms, pushing her wonder-bra’d breast up to strain her buttons. Huey elbowed Dewey when he started to stare. “It’s so romantic, wouldn’t you say, Frase?”

“Well,” Fraser said, and that wasn’t flustered Fraser. That wasn’t even ‘Why am I surrounded by idiots’ Fraser. That was _pissy_ Fraser. 

Holy shit. Fraser didn’t only believe in ghosts, he had _researched_ ghosts and found enough evidence that he was convinced.

“Shakespeare’s ghosts were nothing like Patrick Swayze, Frannie,” I said, jumping in before Fraser could let his inner bitch fly. “It was all a lot of revenge and death and not so much with the sexy pottery.”

Fraser was giving me that look he always did when I surprised him with something smart, and I grinned at him. Take _that_ Mr. Higgs-Boatsman, or whatever. I might not have his vocabulary, but I did sit through the literature requirements for my degree, and Hamlet was actually kinda cool once you got past the language and funny pants. Got a copy sitting on my bookshelf at home, even, hidden behind my copy of _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repair._

“Yes, exactly, Ray,” Fraser said. “And I do believe Lieutenant Welsh is waiting for us in his office.”

“Yeah, all right. So _exeunt_ that way, Fraser,” I said, and pointed.

Fraser nodded, “Right you are,” and put his hat back on his head. He glanced at me, mouth open just enough for him to lick the corner of his upper lip with the tip of his tongue, even as he stepped around the Duck boys. “ _Sans_ bear, Ray?”

I shook my head, matching him again as we approached Welsh’s office. “What you get up to up in Canada is none of my business, Frase, but I’m pretty sure that’s illegal here in the lower 48.”

“Understood, Ray,” he said, and opened the door. I lead the way through, biting my lip to keep from laughing. I loved it when he played like this, played with me; that he knew me well enough that we _could,_ play this way. That I knew enough to keep up with him. I mean, I know I ain’t dumb, but Frase has just _so much_ in his head, you know? And it was great at distracting me. 

Either way, my smile left my face real damn quick when I looked at Welsh.

This was going to be a rough one.

Welsh, in general, only had two looks; pissed off and _really_ pissed off. This look was so far beyond the general level of pissed that, if Fraser wasn’t right behind me, I would have turned and left the office, fuck the job. There was a large bottle of antacids on his desk on top of an open casefile and next to one of those industrial sized bottles of aspirin. A broken pencil lay between them, and I don’t think he broke it trying to open the bottle.

“Detective, Constable,” he said, tightly.

“Is something wrong, Lieu?” I asked, and braced myself.

“Is something wrong?” Welsh repeated, voice low like one of those sharks me an’ Fraser watched on the Discovery Channel the other night, the Great White kind, like _Jaws_ , that dive real deep and attack their prey from below. “What could have possibly clued you in that there was something wrong?” here we go, the shark was charging, picking up speed. “Is it the way my usually sunny demeanor has darkened somewhat?” He half-stood, arms braces on his desk like a bulldog and didn’t care that it didn’t fit in my metaphor. “They should make you a detective!” And breach! The Great White has eaten another seal.

Fraser cleared his throat. “Perhaps it would be better to ask, _what_ is wrong?”

“Perhaps, Constable. Perhaps.” Welsh slumped back down in his seat. He rubbed his temples with his fingers. Not good. “What’s the deal with Peretti?”

“Doneski,” I said. “Confessed and is out of our hands. We were on our way in to submit our reports.”

“Good,” Welsh said. “I want them on my desk _yesterday_ , because you have another case. This one as a personal favor to the Commissioner.”

Fraser and I exchanged looks. I should have figured it was some kind of shit from above; nothing else set off Welsh’s blood pressure the same way, but I couldn’t think of what it could be. Things that affected the Commissioner, and especially things that affected his term in office, tended to make the news. Fraser shook his head slightly; he had no idea, either. Great. I love runnin’ blind.

“It is not widely known,” Welsh started, “but the Commissioner has a nephew who has recently become the target of what appears to be a vendetta of sorts. So far, it’s been nothing too serious. His car has been keyed. His front door forced open. His things rearranged but nothing missing.” He shrugged. “It’s not much to go on, but the Commissioner, and his nephew, seem convinced that these events are warnings, and are worried that if the perpetrator isn’t caught, it might escalate to violence.”

Welsh took a deep breath. “Here’s where it gets tricky. The Commissioner’s nephew is Tyler Shane.” At our blank looks, Welsh elaborated. “The host of _Paranormal Detectives_.”

It clicked. “Is that the one where the guy takes a video camera into haunted houses looking for evidence?” Walsh and Fraser looked at me, but the memory was solidifying, and I went on. “Yeah, yeah. He, uh. People write in saying their house in haunted, and this Shane shows up with his ‘ghost detectives’ and they spend the night alone in the house, recording things, hoping to find evidence of the ghost.” Okay, _now_ they were staring at me. “What? It might have been marathoning a couple weeks ago when I was out with the stomach thing.” No wonder my memory of it was hazy. I had food poisoning something fierce for me and Dief, who had learned not to touch my food for a whole week after.

Fraser turned back to Welsh. “Are there any suspects as to whom is targeting Mr. Shane?”

“Just one,” Welsh said. “The Eastside Evangelical Mission.”

I groaned. Great. Just what we need. Fraser looked confused, so I explained it to him. “They’re nutjobs,” I said. “A hate group posing a church. They like to protest things they find immoral, such as the funerals of people who’ve died from AIDS and the weddings of interracial couples, in the name of spreading the ‘love of God.’ It’s hate-mongering, Frase, and it’s disgusting.”

“They protest funerals?” Fraser asked, looking horrified, and I nodded.

“Oh yeah. The highlight was a little girl who had been killed in a car crash with her father. Drunk driver T-boned them at an intersection. These assholes showed up because they were being laid to rest by the father’s boyfriend—the girl’s _other_ father.”

Fraser pressed his lips together and swallowed. He’d gone pale, but there was color high on his face; it was anger. Carefully repressed rage. Good. Then he and I were on the same page.

“These—protestors have taken offense to Mr. Shane?”

“They have,” Walsh said. “They seem to think Shane is practicing witchcraft.”

 _”Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,”_ Fraser said quietly, like he was quoting to himself.

I snorted, loud enough to shake Fraser. “Bullshit, he’s a witch. That show is a total fake; there hasn’t been one piece of ‘evidence’ that couldn’t be faked, and totally is for ratings.” I shook my head. “If they protest him for anything, it should be for being a fraud.”

“Still,” Fraser said. “Having a television show that has been partially fabricated for entertainment purposes is hardly a crime, and it certainly doesn’t entitle the Eastside Evangelical Mission to harass Mr. Shane.”

Walsh held out the file, and Fraser took it. “I know that I don’t have to stress how quiet this is being kept?” Walsh said, and I shook my head.

“No sir, it is well and truly stressed.” Nobody wanted any connection with those whackjobs, and it made sense that the Commissioner didn’t want it public knowledge that his nephew was a fake television ghost hunter.

“Good. Now why are you still in my office?”

“We’re gone, sir,” I said, turning tail and rushing back to my desk, Fraser half a step behind and carrying the file.

I sat down at my desk, digging though for the paperwork to finish the Peretti report, while Fraser went over the evidence. We had a pretty good system for this sort of thing: Fraser would read first, committing everything to memory, and I would read second, calling out ideas as I went, with Fraser there to bounce ‘em off of. I had just gotten everything set when Fraser closed the file with a deep “hmm.”

“’Hmm’?” I asked him. “What ‘hmm’?”

Fraser took a deep breath to speak, then seemed to think better of it and closed his mouth. He handed me the file. “It might be better for you to draw your own conclusions before I give you mine,” he said.

I took the file, and nodded. “Okay. Fine. You type, I read.”

“Of course, Ray,” he said, and we switched seats. He sat at the typewriter, cracked his knuckles all at once, and began to type. His fingers blurred and I had to shake myself to look away. Focus, Ray. Read the file.

It was all pretty low-level stuff, even if some of it was kind of hokey. Actually, it read like one of the cases on his show; voices with no one there, unexplained footsteps, items not where they were left.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “They’re harassing him by faking a _haunting_?”

“That’s certainly one explanation,” Fraser said, hitting the carriage release lever. “There is another.”

“What?” I asked, flipping to the pages about Shane’s team. “That his team is harassing him?” They seemed to be the only other ones who would benefit.

“That Mr. Shane is really being haunted.”

I snapped the file shut, the panicky-fear returning, and I found it hard to swallow. “For real, Frase?”

Fraser hit a key, and pulled the last page from the typewriter. “I don’t see why not. If Mr. Shane is really the fraud everyone thinks he is, then he is unused to actual paranormal events. It makes sense that he would try to rationalize it away.”

“Yeah, but—ghosts?” I said. “We’ve had some pretty Scooby Doo cases, Fraser, but the monster always turned out to be a guy in a rubber mask.” Thank God. I was done with all that weird shit. 

You hear me universe? DONE. D.O.N.E.

...yeah, you never listen. 

Fraser sighed and scratched his forehead over his eyebrow. Aww, shit. Now he’s disappointed in me, but I just couldn’t explain this one. I sighed, knowing I probably would try to anyway. Fraser had a habit of getting past my defenses .

“Well,” I said. “We’re detectives, right? Real detectives. We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we went in thinking’ we already had it solved.” Here we go. “I’ll keep an open mind, okay?”

Fraser smiled at me, a deeper relief shining through his face. “That’s all I can ask, Ray.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Let’s go introduce ourselves.” I stood and led the way out, trying to ignore the way the shadow around Fraser had seemed to perk up and take notice.

Shit.


	2. Fraser

I did not realize just how much of my life revolved around the less than physical world until I began my training at the Academy. My mother had been a spiritual person, the evidence of which could be found in the charms stitched and sewn into my baby clothes and the soft toys I had when young. 

My father wasn’t a spiritual person—still isn’t even though he is now a spirit, which seems like a gross oversight to me, but he’s my father and there you have it.

My father took after my grandparents, the traveling librarians. The people in the towns and villages and outposts were appreciative of our wares, and genuinely seemed to like my grandparents, but there was always a resistance just under the surface. Who are you to tell us how to think? What to think?

The few people who populated my youth thought differently of me, and now that I am grown I thank them deeply. They looked at the three of us—and elderly white couple, and a young boy who was almost an orphan, and saw in me a type of promise.

My grandfather gave me maths books, geometry and calculus. Quinn taught me to track, to hunt, to feel and connect with the world around me.

My grandmother gave me literature, philosophy and religion. Innuqsuq gave me something to believe in, and the words to express myself.

My father gave me duty, honor, and sheer stubbornness. June gave me a place to be young, a place to play.

My grandparents traveled the north to educate, and in turn the north educated me. I learned to trust my senses, even when my head disagreed. I learned to listen to my heart when logic failed. I was _connected_ to the land in a way that I at twelve already knew was beyond my blood family’s capacity to understand.

Then my grandfather died. My grandmother followed him a year later. I was already away, weeks from graduation and my first posting, and away from my home I had drawn in so tightly to myself that no one could see me. These, my fellow Mounties, were so different from what I was used to, that I could see for the first time how strange my life had been—strange to them. Not to me.

Still, I learned to keep the instinct hidden, to present only the logic; they couldn’t disagree with the logic, couldn’t shoot me down without giving it due consideration. While I was away, I used my grandmother’s logic as a weapon, and when I came home, it found it nearly impossible to put that weapon down.

I got my first posting. Six months later, I was transferred further north. Then again. I didn’t care, the North was where I needed to be. I was looking for that connection of my youth, but it was as if my socket had been changed; the circuit could no longer be completed.

When I met Victoria, she woke a fire in me that I mistook for the passion of my youth. She was a frayed wire, and nothing more, though she left scorch marks that I’m still trying to scrub clean.

Several years passed, and my father was killed. I led the way with logic, the remnants of my sparking spirit driving me forward so that when I landed in Chicago I had nothing left. Inefficient connections had left me drained. It was easier, then, to think of myself as a creature of logic, even as my receptors found a friend and brother in Ray Vecchio.

Then, of course, my father’s ghost appeared in the back seat of Ray’s 1967 Buick Rivera, and I had to reassess my worldview on the fly. The spiritualism of my early days rushed back to the fore; I could no longer hold myself apart and yet I could not _connect._ That divide in myself, that constant struggle, was a trademark of my partnership with Ray--my brother in all but blood. He held in his heart the passion, but he could not see _me_ So, my struggle didn’t come to an end with Ray’s sudden fly-by-night departure, though it certainly shifted. Once again my life was changed forever by fire. 

Or, more accurate to say, was changed by a fire named Stanley Raymond Kowalski.

Ray Kowalski, son of Barbraa and Damian, recent ex-husband of States Attorney Stella Kowalski. He was the cover for Ray Vecchio’s cover, and the first honest connection I have made since before my Grandmother’s death.

He greeted me with a smile and a hug that, even though my confusion, sang through me in resonant harmony. Even while I questioned his very identity, we played point and counterpoint, in step and in sync.

Ray must have felt it too, for only a few days after meeting him, he was telling me his life story while we waited in the cemetery so he could put his past to rest. He seemed surprised himself by how honest his questions were, by how sincerely he wanted the answers.

I have never felt a connection with anyone like I have with Ray Vecchio nee Kowalski.

I feel, now, that hypnotizing Ray was a mistake, though one that needed to be made. It set changes in motion that directly influenced our partnership in such a way that, when Ray punched me on the banks of Lake Michigan, even I could not say it wasn’t deserved. Something was off, and it grated like a piece of grit stuck in one’s eye. It wasn’t righted until I finally gave in and let myself trust Ray’s instincts. It was like ripping open an old festering wound and finally, finally, letting it bleed and purge.

I am aware that my own introspection can lean towards the macabre. I have accepted this.

Since then, I have felt the connection we share only deepen, drawing me forth from behind my defenses even as my longing for home grows. I think, some days, that Ray can feel it too; can share it, in his own way. I think if the connection grows deep enough, that when I return home—and I will one day return—that Ray will come with me. I think Ray will do well—he has the spirits about him, even if he is unaware of their presence.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that Ray responds to Francesca’s inquiry with skepticism. I can practically feel his surprise at my obscure confirmation that yes, I do believe in ghosts. It’s good, very good, that Ray can read me so easily.

Of course, Francesca’s question calls forth my father. “It’s not belief if you have proof,” He harrumphs. I don’t necessarily agree with him, but he has a point. I do have proof, insomuch as I am not actually crazy and my life in Chicago isn’t some grand delusion brought on by too much exposure to the elements. Still, I cannot tell _them_ that, and I cannot even tell him off for that as I am watched too closely by the other detectives and Ray.

By the same token, I am not surprised that Ray professes disbelief, even after Lt. Welsh lets us go and it is just the two of us. The revitalization of our partnership has meant less secrets, but some things are hard to talk about. I know what it is like to cut out pieces of your life because it simply hurts too much. Some lies are easiest to tell to ourselves. 

As we walked to his car, Ray seemed more disgruntled than was his usual for the beginning of a case, most likely due to the paranormal trappings of the investigation. For someone who finds enjoyment in fictional pursuits that play off of the paranormal, such as the 1982 film Poltergeist, starring JoBeth Williams, Craig T Nelson, and Heather O'Rourke, (we watched the film together just three nights ago as part of Ray's ongoing campaign to expose me to more popular culture—Ray seemed quite appalled when I told him I had never seen the film, and understandably so. It was quite enjoyable, even if the vibrations from Zelda Rubenstein's voice made Dief howl).

As I was saying, for someone who finds enjoyment in fictional pursuits that play off the paranormal, Ray seems quite resistant to the real life possibilities of such. Given the emotional reaction that Ray had when he had revealed, under hypnosis, his abduction as a child, it is no wonder that he clings to the logical even more closely than I do. It is all part of the wondrous paradox that is Stanley Raymond Kowalski. I am quite sure that no one else could be so in tune with the other world and deny it's existence so vehemently.

My own experience with the other world, my father, is, as usual, no help on the subject.

I entered the car first, being closer to the door, and was not surprised to see my father in the backseat. I sighed and climbed inside. My father wasted no time.

"Ghosts?!" He said, incredulous. "I have never heard anything so preposterous."

"You're a ghost, yourself," I snapped, knowing my composure was slipping, but really, I was past caring. I had little time.

My father shook his head. "And do you see me terrorizing anyone? No. You don't."

"I wouldn't say that," I muttered as Ray slid into the driver's seat.

"Wouldn't say what?" Ray asked.

"I wouldn't say many things," I said, ignoring the way my father sank back, arms crossed like a stubborn toddler.

"Yeah, that's true," Ray said, starting the car. "Like that you actually believe in ghosts. What's that about?" Ray pulled the car out of the lot, tires squealing as he gunned the engine to get ahead of traffic. I resisted the urge to grab the handle of the car door, letting the adrenaline flood my system. I may, on occasion, remind Ray of the traffic laws, but as my reminders usually result in him breaking more rules with willful glee, I do not do so often. Besides, there is something about the way drives, the thrill of moving fast by the seat of your pants, reminds me of traveling over the long ice with the dogs, and it excites me as much as it reminds me of home.

It is more than a little likely that I've become somewhat attached to thrill-seeking behaviors. When they result in the successful completion of a case, or in Ray pushing himself to his limits as well, shining brightly as he paces me, I know I can't make myself break away.

In the back seat, My father grumbled something about not needing to die twice, and disappeared. I felt myself relax, and slip into the less reserved state that had become my norm when alone with Ray. Many things had become normal with Ray that had never been so before.

"It's not about anything, Ray. It simply means that I know we will continue even if we don't survive."

Ray thought about that for a moment, then shot me a wry look. "Issat a crack about my driving?"

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it, Ray." I answered, suppressing a smile. Ray didn't bother, his grin curling up over the edges of his mouth, revealing his teeth.

"Noted," he said, and gunned the engine. I didn't bother trying to hide my smile after that.

***

Tyler Shane lived by himself in the brownstone he had inherited from his parents. Ray parked across the street and we both looked over at the building for a moment.

"It's just not fair, Frase," Ray said, "That hucksters get this, and us who hump a honest job get squat."

"We don't know for sure that Mr. Shane isn't what he appears to be," I reminded him, and myself as well. Certainly, the evidence pointed towards Mr. Shane being more akin to the charlatans from turn of the century than to, say, the local shaman, but I couldn't help but hope as I pushed the image of my tiny...office out of my mind.

"You're not sure," Ray replied, "I am sure. I am the surest. I am the epi-whatsit—"

"Epitome."

"Yeah, the epitome of sure. That man is a fake and a fraud. And worse, he works in television." Ray nodded his head, a single snapping move, and opened his door. I did likewise, holding my door for Dief, and the three of us crossed the street to Mr. Shane's home.

We climbed the steps, myself one at a time, and Ray with a light bounding and got him two steps at once. He rang the doorbell and jumped back, all light motion and energy as I stood, rooted behind him.

I loved watching Ray when he was like this; the sun sparked off of his hair turning it to gold as Ray moved like fire, and I, was as a moth to his flame. It was all I could do to keep my hands to myself; it was harder to resist each time.

The chain on the door rattled, and I pulled my eyes from Ray as Mr. Shane opened the door a fraction.

"Can I help you?" Mr. Shane asked through the door. While I never made a habit of watching the show—indeed, of watching any television other than curling or hockey—I had seen _Paranormal Detectives_ from time to time when Ray would pause on the station to mock the proceedings. In person, Mr. Shane's voice was higher, more timid, but that could simply be a side effect of the circumstances.

Ray, stilling into professionalism even as he vibrated under his skin, held up his badge. "I'm Detective Vecchio, this is Constable Fraser, RCMP." Ray paused, waiting for the inevitable.

"A Mountie?" Mr. Shane asked. "In Chicago?"

"Yes," I said, "I first came to Chicago on the trail of my father's killers—"

"And now he's here, and I'm here, and we're here to talk to you at behest of your uncle, the Commissioner," Ray interrupted. Again, I found myself withholding a smile. Really, Ray was terrible for my professional stoicism. "We understand there have been a few incidents."

Mr. Shane seemed to shake himself, and opened the door to let us inside. "Yes," he said. "Yes, for the past few weeks, and again last night." He was visibly shaken, pale and, judging by the wrinkle pattern, still dressed in last night's pajamas. "You better come in," he said.

Ray pushed his way through, with his American Cowboy swagger and sense of entitlement. I tipped my hat, saying "Thank you, kindly," and followed, Dief hot on my heels.

"Issat a wolf?" Mr. Shane asked.

"Yes," I said, surprised. Most Americans said "dog," as their preconceived notions—there are no wolves in cities—wouldn't let them believe the input of their eyes. "Well, half anyway. His name is Diefenbaker."

"It's a strong spirit, the wolf," Mr. Shane said in a half-dreamlike way that implied he wasn't listening. "Loyal and Protective. Perfect for police. But beware the wild, for it can be fierce and consume you."

That was—disturbing, frankly, and much akin to warnings I had received in the past. Ray folded his arms, more affected than he wanted to admit and getting angry about it. "I'm afraid the only things Dief has consumed in recent years has been from various hot dog carts and bakeries," I said. "He has a weakness for pretzels and powdered doughnuts."

Dief whined, and I looked at him. "Well, it's true. You haven't hunted anything faster than a street vendor in months."

That seemed to snap Mr. Shane out of wherever he was, and he led us into the kitchen. "Can I get you anything. Coffee? Tea?"

"Coffee'd be great, yeah," Ray said, before I could. "Frase?"

"No, no thank you." I said. Mr. Shane poured two mugs, handing one to Ray with a gesture towards the sugar bowl, and pouring a generous amount of cream into his own. Ray had already poured his desired (alarming) amount of sugar when he stopped and looked at Mr. Shane. It was then that I realized as well; Mr. Shane had never asked how Ray liked his coffee.

Now, it was easy enough to assume that Mr. Shane took a gamble in offering Ray the sugar, that it would have been seen as such if Ray, say, didn't take sugar or instead took cream, but—Ray did take sugar, and it was enough to put the suggestion out there; that there was something else, some other force, at work here.

I cleared my throat. "Mr. Shane—,"

"Tyler, please," he said.

"Tyler," I corrected. "Maybe we should begin with what, exactly has happened. Detective Vecchio and I have both read the statement you gave, but it would be helpful to hear it from you now."

"All right," Mr. Shane—Tyler, said, and sat at the kitchen table. Ray leaned against the counter behind him, all long angles and subtle relaxation, as he faced Mr. Shane directly. I stood between them at parade rest, my hat tucked under my arm, and I was aware, suddenly, of what a strange tableau we created. Like a piece of modern art; Three Detectives. For, in a way, that's what we were: Canadian, Chicago, and Paranormal.

"It began...well," Mr. Shane paused, sipped his coffee. "I noticed it a few weeks ago when it started to escalate, but really, it had been going on for months before that; i had just never put the pieces together."

"And what pieces were those, exactly," Ray asked.

"That I was being targeted," Mr. Shane said. "I mean, anything and everything publicly paranormal gets its fair share of hate from the religious fronts. I've been told I'm a witch, that I'm practicing black magic, that i'm interfering with God's design. I was once even accused of ‘congress with the devil’" Mr. Shane shrugged. "Believe what you want, I believe in what I do, and I bring people peace and closure. I don't see how that's a bad thing." He paused. "But somebody obviously does."

"It started with little things. Sounds. Voices half-heard then forgotten about. Then things began to move. Cups I put down in one room appear in another. Silverware ends up all over the house. It seems silly, but the bookmarks in my books move. All things that could be explained away by too little sleep. We've been filming our next season, and we've been doing a lot of traveling. Late nights, long stretches away. I honestly didn't notice." He paused, sipping once more from his cup, as if to give himself courage.

"It changed about six weeks ago. The little things happened more frequently, and started to take a malicious turn. My car was keyed, then somebody poured sugar in the gas tank. I went to change the oil, and found a hose had been cut. The voices are louder now, and the things that are moved are larger. Now it's furniture being shifted. Kitchen knives moved to the back of my dresser drawers, or into my medicine chest. He held up his hand and showed us his right ring finger. There was a bandaid on what seemed to be the deepest part of a long cut. "I lost three pairs of socks to the blood, but thank God it didn't need stitches."

Mr. Shane put the mug down. "Somebody has been coming into my house without my knowledge and is deliberately trying to terrorize me. And worse, they're using my life's work to do it. My privacy has been invaded, and I want them stopped."

Ray nodded, flipping through his notebook. He didn’t actually need it as much as he liked to use it, and tended to pull it out when he needed to portray either great care, or negligence. Great care meant he was recording everything because we were going to _catch_ whoever did it. Negligence meant he didn’t care enough to remember, and the case would be lost, one of the many never solved. Same book, same motions—the difference was all in Ray. At the moment, he was radiating great care.

"Okay, no offense meant, just to be on the same page here." Ray gave me a look, as if to say, _See what I'll do for you?_

"Anything, Detective."

"You said you believe in what you do. Are you sure the culprit is, in fact, of this plane of existence?"

It took Mr. Shane a moment to understand, and when he did he snorted, thankfully in amusement. "You're asking if I think I'm being haunted?"

Ray nodded. "Yes, that is exactly what I'm asking, even if I can’t believe I'm asking it."

"Detective, Constable," Mr. Shane said, nodding to me to include me. "I have been doing my job for a very long time. I've seen evidence several times over that I would count as proof of ghostly activity. Ghosts appear on film and on recordings, because their essential energy is still electric. They can shift things, get balls rolling and the like, but they do not have the capacity to move objects the way they are here. Quite frankly, it is because of the scale that I have ruled out ghosts. They're just not that coherent."

"Preposterous," My father protested, and I closed my eyes tightly for a brief moment. "And offensive, I make perfect sense."

"To whom," I muttered, getting a dirty look from him, but thankfully Mr. Shane seemed to think I was talking to him.

"To the living," he said. "They're existing on another plane; they no longer experience the way we do. Thus, when we do get messages, they tend to be spotty and garbled."

"And therefore, not a clear message like you've been receiving," I said.

"Exactly," Mr. Shane said.

“Tell us what happened last night.” Ray said.

Mr. Shane stood. “It might be easier to show you.”


	3. Ray

Fucking Fraser, and his fucking hypnosis. This whole case was his fault. 

Fraser had folded like a house of cards when I confronted him, apologizing profusely, but I waved it off. Cauliflower. _Jesus._ It was a prank, and a pretty harmless one compared to some of the stupid shit I have done in my life, so whatever, you know. I wasn’t pissed about that.

No, I was pissed about the freakin’ _side effects._

It started with shadows. Brief moments where one person had two shadows, a flicker like there was someone there, someone dark and not quite solid, but there. It freaked me out at first—well, first I had my prescription checked, but that all worked out. Then I realized I could see them better without my glasses, and that it felt familiar somehow. Like when Mum would start talking to me in Polish, and I know that at some point I would have known everything she was saying, but now I get only one word in five. Yeah, that’s it. The shadows reminded me of a language that I’ve since forgotten, but still remember knowing.

See, when I was little, like a _little_ kid here, I was into all that little kid stuff: spaceships and ghosts and knights and magic ‘n shit, playin’ where the dragon had to be defeated by the Starship Enterprise, because _Star Trek_ was the most awesomest thing to awesome on TV until I was about ten or so. Then, aliens--ALIENS--shook me up something fierce, and in my head it was all tied up with the magic and the fantasy, so Boom, out the window it all goes. I turned to cars and motorcycles and Steve McQueen and Stella, and I left little kid Stanley who believed in magic to become Ray-the-tough-guy, Ray-of-the-Golden-Stella, Ray-who-is-too-cool-for-all-that-crap.

If there is one lesson that my life should have taught me by now, it’s that nothing stays buried. Nothing. Not even things that I don’t remember burying. Especially those things.

It’s why I didn’t recognize what was happening at first; I could have been finally cracking under the pressure of being someone else, of seeing Stella everyday and have her not be _my_ Stella, of the damn job—but funny enough, it was Fraser that eased my worry. Fraser often saw things (and smelt things and heard things) that no one else could, and he wasn’t nuts. Well, he was a little nuts, but in a good way. You know. A Freak.

The point is, most people have a shadow. Some people had more. Some had light shadows—I know, I know. “How can a shadow be light, Ray? “They just fucking _were_ okay? I don’t even know. They _felt_ light.

So, some people had light shadows, like Elaine, a flicker that made me think of my Nana every damn time. Some had dark shadows, like Frannie. As bright as she was, she had some serious darkness following her around, and I was getting four even before I thought to put two and two together, thinking that “with a father like she had, no wonder she’s got a dark cloud following her.” But as angry and frustrated as that cloud was, it never felt mal—maltic—evil. It was more pathetic, really.

But Fraser—Fraser had this real _dark_ cloud following him, surrounding him--less pathetic than Frannie’s and more...tragic. Lost. Sometimes I felt like I could choke, it was so thick in the air. 

Shane’s house was full of shadows, half shapes that were dancing a conga at the edge of my vision. Something stunk, and it wasn’t just the weird incense the guy had going, which smelled like burnt grass and herbs, and it made me sneeze.

Also, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. I hate that feeling. 

I scratched the back of my neck

Shane led up one of those really narrow old-building staircases. The steps creaked under my feet like I was walking up a busted organ, while behind me, Fraser hit the quietest spots on each step.

Un-freakin-real.

The second floor was quieter than the first, farther removed from the traffic sounds of the street, and I got a freeky feeling, like we were walking into a church. The feeling of eyes on the back of my neck didn’t ease up, and I checked the position of my gun in its holster.

Fraser didn’t seem to notice, but when I paused at the top of the stairs, he pressed close, like he was seeking strength to go on. That, more than anything else, got me. Frase doesn’t spook easy.

Shane stopped in front of the last door on the left. From his robe pocket, he pulled out an old metal key like the kind my Dad’s mom hand on the keyring that hung in her kitchen. A skeleton key.

_Oh, now you’re just_ trying _to rev yourself up._ Relax _, Stanley._

Shane raised the key to the door and paused, looking over his shoulder. “This room is my study. It’s where I do most of my research. I was in here until nearly two am working before going to bed. I slept through the night; nothing woke me up, no noises, anything. When I came back the next morning around ten am, it was like this.” He unlocked the door, and pushed it open. The door swung a foot before it got stuck on something.

The light inside was off, but there was enough from the windows that even without my glasses, I could see the place was trashed. Shane stepped back.

“I went in just long enough to see that my computer had been smashed, and then called the police.”

Fraser gestured towards the room. “Do you mind if we…?”

“Not at all,” Shane said. “They already came through with pictures, dusted for prints and everything. They told me I could put the place back to rights, but to be honest, I haven’t been able to go back in.”

Shane stepped back, and I followed Fraser into the room, stepping carefully over the threshold. It was like walking into a freezer. I rubbed my hands together, blowing into my palms, and kept half an eye on Fraser as he looked about the room. Fraser didn’t appear to be cold, but then again, Fraser acted like reacting to temperature was worse than walking around naked, so that meant bubkis.

The other half of my eye looked about the room. Now, I could see why Shane had been so freaked out. The room was more than trashed; all the furniture had been piled up against the far wall. The books had been pulled from the bookcase and torn apart; there was paper everywhere. Shane’s computer was now nothing more than a dead pile of plastic, glass, and wires on his carpet—the same one that was now bunched up in front of his door—and his phone was tangled in the ceiling fan by the cord.

And there was something else. I looked around, trying to pinpoint what I was feeling. We were missing a clue, and a big one. The shadows in the corners flickered.

“You get anything, Frase?” I asked quietly, trying to keep my questions from Shane, who was hovering in the doorway.

Slowly, Fraser shook his head, his attention clearly elsewhere. “Nothing concrete,” he said in that way he had that meant he was listening to an ant fart at a hundred paces.

“Yeah? What’re you hearing?”

Fraser seemed to come back to himself, shaking his head, and twisting to crack his neck. “Not now, Ray,” he said.

I looked at him for a long minute. “Okay,” I agreed, and I waited. Fraser had started to talk me through his thought process once I had managed to drill into his head that I didn’t mind him taking the time to think over clues as long as he told me _eventually._

It was amazing--like watching Batman work.

Suddenly, Fraser turned and began running his fingers along the edge of the window, along the grates of the heating system.

“What is it?” I asked.

Fraser hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Ray, do you feel like you’re being watched?”

Well, yeah, but I was trying to ignore it. It was the same thing that had set me off on the stairs, just much stronger now. I shivered. “This place gives me the heebie jeebies,” I muttered. 

“I admit that I feel my own sense of heebs and jeebs,” Fraser said, equally quiet, and it was enough to make me relax a fraction, to roll my eyes. That had to be deliberate. Fraser was too quick to be that off, and he had a funky sense of humor besides. 

“You think he’s bugged?” I asked. “Wouldn’t forensics have picked up on that.”

Fraser pressed his cheek to the wall and tapped lightly on the plaster. “Probably,” he said. That was Fraser-speak for _no way in hell_ if I’ve ever heard it, so I pushed it. 

I always have to fucking push.

“But, uh, would we both be reacting to bugs?” I asked. Fraser stilled. “I mean, we’re both in front of cameras all the time, and we never get that “being watched” feeling.”

“Ah,” Fraser said, leaning back. “Good point.” And _that_ was a sarcastic _thank you for reminding me of that thing I almost managed to forget about._

I want to state for the record that I did _not_ laugh at him, but that I might have been smiling bigger than I really needed to. Not that it lasted long, because just as I was starting to relax into teasing Fraser, someone grabbed my shoulder.

“Yah!” I spun, expecting to find Shane behind me. “Don’t—”

Fuck. Fuuuuck.

There was no one there. The space in front of me was empty, and I could see Shane still standing in the doorway. Of course, now he was staring at me like I had startled _him_ and wasn’t that just a kick in the ass.

“Ray?” Fraser asked. In the seconds it had taken for me to freak out, Fraser had materialized at my side, and placed a broad hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Peachy, Frase,” I said. I could feel that presence greater than ever, only now it was laughing at me. Mocking me. “I got everything I need for now.”

Fraser looked at me, trying to meet my eyes, but I didn’t want to do that. If I did that, he would see how freaked out I was, and if he saw that…

I really should know better than to try and hide. Fraser cupped my jaw—God, his hands were so warm, so heavy against my skin—and gently turned my head to face him. And he saw it, there was no way to hide it, he _saw_ how freaked out I was.

His eyes offered only sympathy, and a certain knowing _understanding_. He got it, like he always got it, and he had my back. Point, counterpoint. Partners.

I think, if Shane hadn’t stuck his fat head in, I would have kissed him. I know I wanted to.

But Shane did, and it was good he did because you can’t just go around kissing your partner at a crime scene. Especially not at one this dark. 

“Everything okay?” Shane called. I noticed that he never actually crossed the threshold of the room. Something must have happened when he went to check on his stuff. Something he wasn’t talking about.

“Just fine, thank you,” Fraser said. Then, softer to me, “Let us get out of here.”

I nodded, and we walked from the room. Fraser kept his hand on my shoulder until we were back in the hallway.

The oppressive presence wasn’t as strong out here. I hadn’t realized how much it had grown while we had been in that room. I shivered, turned it into a shake. Shook my hands, shook my arms, shook my head. Shake it out. 

“So,” I said. “Who has access to this house?”

“My assistant, Jenna,” Shane said, closing the door behind him. “My cameraman, Mitch, has a key for emergencies. Nobody else. But it couldn’t be either of them, if for no other reason than that if the show ends, they’re out of a job.”

“Right,” I said. “Before we go, we’d like a list of your employees, anyway. Just to make sure we cover every base.”

“Fine,” Shane said. “I’ll get Jenna to fax…oh,” he cut himself off and his eyes flickered back towards the room-of-supernatural-destruction. “I’ll get her to run one over.”

Right. Because his fax machine was in pieces in the doom room.

“But you see why I’m so worried,” Shane said, leaning in close. “All this was done while I was _sleeping,_ and I don’t see how.”

“That’s why we’re here, Tyler,” Fraser said, all earnest Mountie. “Justice will be done.”

Shane looked like he was about to cry, he was so grateful, and I wondered just how long he’d been dealing with the creepy. If this room was his office, then probably longer than he should have been.

“Our Lieutenant said that you thought this might be connected to the EEM,” I said, to get Shane’s attention off of Fraser and hopefully stop the tears.

“Yes, that’s right,” Shane said, leaning back and gathering himself. “I’ve gotten a number of threatening letters over the years, everybody who had dealings with the paranormal in this city has, but recently they’ve gotten worse.”

“Worse?” Fraser prompted. Something flickered in the corner of my eye, a shadow underneath the door, and I looked, but there was nothing there. I forced myself to keep my eyes ahead and started trying to remember all the words to Fraser's national anthem to keep myself from thinking about it or noticing it again. I got as far as “Oh, Canada!” on repeat, and I switched to the Clash. _“I’ve been running Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday...”_

I looked back, and Shane was nodding at Fraser. “More frequent, for one. Used to be, it felt like they were writing me a letter once a month out of obligation. Jenna had them place a redirect on all mail from them, to a PO Box. We empty it out every few months. Then, a month ago, Jenna got a call saying that the box was overfull, and could we please come collect our mail.” Shane crossed his arms over his chest. “I remember thinking it was strange, as we had just emptied the box two weeks prior. But sure enough, the box is full of letters of all different type. Some are typewritten, some by hand. A few were cut-and-paste from letters and magazines. But they all say the same thing. ‘Stop. You’re in league with the devil. The devil will take your soul. Stop before you poison anyone else with your devil lies.’ Some variation on that, anyway, with a dramatic reference to the state of my soul. Then, they all talk of the need to be purified before I die. By fire,” Shane paused. “And there’s a very strong implication that I would be killed after to make sure the purification stuck.” Shane looked away. “I’ll have Jenna send those as well.”

“Good idea,” I said.

Shane thanked me, and then said. “And, of course, there have been protests here and there. They’ve caused a ruckus at most of my public events. I’ve run into them at filming, in the cemetery, in places where we’ve investigated and waiting at places we’re about to. The head, the rev. Paul Brown, has been particularly provocative of me and mine.” Taylor chuckled. “That we have on tape. He was present at one protest of our filming, and Mitch had his camera rolling. Brown was _pissed,_ and he’s the type to hold a grudge. He’s also the type to make other people do his dirty work.”

I took a moment to jot down the names, pen cap between my teeth, and I heard Fraser clearing his throat.

“Can you give us a moment?” Fraser asked. “I have something to discuss with my partner.”

Shane backed away. “Of course,” he said.

Fraser waited until Shane was out of hearing range…well, out of _my_ hearing range, at any rate, before turning and trying to continue to conversation from earlier.

Nope. Na-ah. Not gonna happen.

“Ray, are you—”

“So give me a rundown, Frase,” I interrupted. I didn’t need to hear it, and I wasn’t quite sure how I’d answer, anyway. “What do we have?”

Fraser raised both eyebrows, letting me know he saw right through me and was letting me get away with it, anyway. Gracious of him. Really. 

“We have the disturbing threatening letters,” Fraser said. “The history of the church’s involvement in Mr. Shane’s affairs. The tape.” He paused. “We also have a very loud crime that no one heard, and the only people who could have gotten in, wouldn’t have done that.”

I shook my head. “I think you’re underestimating the ingenuity of a truly desperate person.”

Fraser flashed a grin at me, quick and blinding. He loved it when I was able to throw out the SAT words. It hurt that I couldn’t do it more often, but with my brain-to-mouth the way it was, I’m just glad it came out at all.

“But they have no motive,” Fraser countered. “I will, of course, apply your object to my last point, that the church members would have fared no better, and I find that that ends my objections.”

“Mark it on the calendar,” I said. “Fraser admits that I’ve out-logiced him.”

Fraser rolled his eyes. “Please, Ray. I’m a Mountie, not a Vulcan.”

I grinned. I _knew_ introducing Fraser to _Star Trek_ was a great idea.

“And,” Fraser continued, sobering. “Of course, the message on the wall.”

“Message?” I asked. “What message?”

Fraser paused, and looked at me more closely. “The words carved into the wall. You didn’t see them?”

“What?” I said again, and bracing myself, opened the door to the room. Sure enough, carved into the wall so deeply in places that the insulation peeked through were the words, _Veni et Vini._

I’ve never been big on church, meant it when I said I was more of a human sacrifice kind of guy. Doesn’t mean my mum didn’t drag my ass to Mass when she could. I remember sitting there, bored out of my mind, and learning real quick that Mom would leave me be if she thought I was reading the Bible. And one summer, I did. I read the whole damn thing, skimming through the boring bits. (Honestly, there weren’t many. Turns out the parts no one talks about are the best bits).

Our church had the type where it had Latin on one side and English on the other, and after a summer of staring at the pages, only one phrase stuck in my head as I remembered seeing it and thinking I had finally gotten to the human sacrifice part.

_Veni et Vini._

_Come and See._

The words that marked the coming of the fucking Apocalypse.

“Fuck me.”


	4. Fraser

I could hear Mr. Shane moving about on the first floor, talking on the phone to his presumably overworked assistant, judging by the tone of voice in which he was speaking.

It pains me to say that, at the moment, I couldn’t have cared less. Ray was pale beside me, eyes unfocused and distant behind his glasses, and I wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, comfort him, and find him answers.

How had he missed the words before? Ray was far too observant a person to simply have missed them. They did not suddenly appear, or I would not have seen them earlier.

Which means that someone, or some _thing_ , had deliberately kept Ray from seeing it?

But why? What purpose could be behind that type of obfuscation? And more, how?

My breath caught as I realized: It was a display of power. _Look what I can do! I can make your own senses turn against you!_ It was to make Ray unable to trust his eyes. It was to make Ray and I, _afraid_.

We were, for the moment, alone. I gave in to my impulses, and put a hand on Ray’s shoulder. Ray jumped, twisting, but I had anticipated his reaction and was ready. When Ray opened his arms, I was there, wrapping my own around him. For all that Ray was a tactile man, he did not often submit to this form of comfort; his surprise was obvious in the tense vibration of his still frame. Still, in the span of a heartbeat, I felt his surrender as he relaxed into the embrace, as he took the comfort I offered him and squeezed, returning it tenfold.

I had learned much since my partnership with Ray Vecchio-nee-Kowalski began, but the lesson I took the most joy from, was the one I’m not sure Ray knew he was teaching: the ability to touch and be touched, and the comfort and support of another person.

We stayed as we were even when I heard Mr. Shane end his call and walk back to the stairs. I knew the moment when Ray heard him, because he tried to pull away. I held him tight for a moment longer, making it a moment of communication— _I am not going anywhere_ —before I let go.

Ray watched me as Mr. Shane came up the stairs, and for the first time in a long time I was unable to read beyond the look on his face. It was the same look he held for interrogations where our bad cop/mountie routine would hold no sway. Had he read more into the gesture than I had intended? Had he seen what secrets I kept hidden deep inside? I could not tell. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Mr. Shane said, pausing on the top step. “But I just spoke to Jenna. She was at the office, and is going to collect the information you wanted and run it over. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine,” I said, turning away from the look on Ray’s face. “We’re done up here, for now. I suggest you close the door, lock it, and continue to absent yourself from the room.”

Mr. Shane snorted. “Fine by me. That room gives me the creeps something serious, now.”

Interesting. “These ‘creeps’ are a new phenomenon?”

Mr. Shane nodded, and stepped around me to lock the door. “Just in the past month or so. We’re approaching the fall equinox, and, well, the run up to Halloween is my busiest season.” He turned and gestured us to follow. I gestured for Ry to precede me down, and he rolled his eyes. Still, he took the offer and I followed him down the stairs. “I get a mild case of the creeps every year starting in mid-September and running through until November first. All that haunted stuff on my mind; even the professionals can get spooked.”

“It started early, this year,” Ray said, “Being only July.” I stepped off of the stairs, and found Diefenbaker curled up on the rug in front of the hearth. I looked over at Ray, and he waved his hand. _Go ahead._

“Yes, I guess it did,” Mr. Shane said. “Stronger, too.”

I stopped in front of Dief, who looked up at me from where his muzzle rested on his paws. I put my hands on my hips. “Well?” I said. “Are you comfortable?”

Dief whined, and his ears flattened to his head. I frowned, and crouched down next to him, resting my elbow on my knee. “ _What do you see?_ ” I asked him in inuktitut, scratching behind his ears. 

“And what does your staff think of these events?” Ray asked behind me.

“They think I’m being haunted,” Mr. Shane said, voice dry. “I’ve tried to tell them it’s just now how it works, but they don’t believe me. Mitch has even referenced The Warrens, like I believe their hype.” Dief trembled under my fingers.

“ _You can see it, too, can’t you?_ ” I mouthed the words, not wanting to be overheard by Mr. Shane or Ray. Dief covered his eyes with his paws. I scratched harder, pressing firmly on the back of his neck, offering what comfort I could.

“The Warrens?” Ray asked. 

“Paranormal Investigators, Ray. Two of the first. Some of their most famous cases involve demonic entities, such as with the doll, Annabell Lee, or the case that would become _The Amityville Horror._ ” 

“Amityville,” Ray said under his breath. “Great.” 

“We work with a psychic sometimes,” Mr. Shane said. “A real ham, but he believes his own line, so it looks good on TV. He’s been telling stories to the rest of the cast and crew since the first Halloween.”

“Hey,” I said, and shook Dief gently until he moved one paw and looked at me. “ _Stick close. We’re not going back upstairs, and we’re neither of us going to be alone._ ” Dief whined, but gave a little “gruff” to say he understood. I stood, stretching past the growing stiffness in my leg. 

Mr. Shane said, “The story changes all the time. But this year he’s been taking acting lessons or something, because he’s been playing it up like he’s too afraid to tell the story: probably hoping for maximum effect.”

“Right,” Ray said.

Dief carefully got to his feet, pressing his weight against my side as we walked—something he hadn’t done since he was a puppy. He weighed considerably more now than he had then, and it took a few steps for me to compensate, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to mind. When we rejoined Ray and Mr. Shane, Dief sat at my feet, and I let my knee press against his shoulder. Ray glanced down, and I saw the surprise in his eyebrows, though he gave no other sign.

Mr. Shane ushered us through to what appeared to be the living room, or parlor. “Jenna will be here any minute,” he said. “The office is only a few blocks away. I need to make a few calls. Do you mind if I…?” Mr. Shane gestured over his shoulder at the kitchen, and more importantly, the kitchen phone.

“Sure,” Ray said, and I nodded my own agreement. Mr. Shane left with a quick slap to the doorframe, and Ray, Dief, and I were left to our own devices.

“Well,” I said, and stopped. All my skill with words, and I had no idea how to finish that sentence.

“This is a dark place,” My father said, appearing at my side. I nodded in agreement, but my eyes were on Ray. Ray had sunk to his knees next to Diefenbaker, and had wrapped his arms around him, fingers and face sinking into Dief’s thick fur. Dief twisted his face, trying to lick Ray’s ear, but he couldn’t ever quite reach, and there was a growing damp patch of hair on the back of Ray’s head.

“Where were you?” I asked, quietly. “We got upstairs and you were just gone.”

I glanced over at him; my father’s face was pale , paler than usual, and he stared straight ahead. I had never seen him so grave; not when Buck was in trouble, not when Gerard was loose. Not when he had come home, after Mom.

“I was denied,” he said, and though I waited, he said no more.

Ray finally pulled away and stood, stretching out creaking joints, and sat on the couch. Dief followed, but looked at me before he jumped onto the cushions, and sat on Ray’s feet instead, his face in Ray’s lap. Ray chuckled softly, weary, and I found myself drawn to his side, as I so often am.

Once seated, I reached over and ran my hand roughly over Dief’s head. Dief growled playfully.

“Hey!” Ray protested, but it was in jest. “No growling so close to my junk, okay?”

Dief bared his teeth in a wolfish grin and licked his chops.

Ray rolled his eyes. “I said _my_ junk, not junk food.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Though the first stop when he leave here is dinner, maybe a bakery. I’m gonna need some feel-good food after this.”

Dief yipped his agreement, and I glared half-heartedly. Truth is, there were several Italian pastries of which I had grown fond, and the idea of a lobster tail was very attractive. “You do realize you’re a wild animal, yes?” I asked. “Cannoli’s don’t just appear in the wild.”

Dief rolled his eyes at me, as if to say, _all the more reason to eat them now_ , but I wasn’t fooled.

“You’re getting soft,” I said, and he looked away. “And fat!”

“Hey now, Dief is a stud!” Ray said, holding up his hands. “And we can get you both snacks after this,” he scratched at Dief’s ear again. “Come on, Dief. You know how he gets when he hasn’t eaten.”

Dief whuffed a laugh, and I rolled my own eyes. Ray was right in that I did tend to get…testy…when I was hungry, but I could control my own impulses. I could. 

The front door opened, and I stood as a young woman—early thirties, athletic build, 5’6”, shoulder length hair pulled back in a messy plait, practical dress—entered the room house. The front door entered into a foyer, and the parlor was to the right of the door, joined by an opening that once held double doors. She saw us quickly—a side affect of my uniform—and joined us with her hand outstretched.

“You must be the detectives,” Jenna said, for this had to be her. Her voice was higher than one would expect, and softer, with a faint south-eastern American accent under the end of her words; she never lived there, but perhaps a parent. “I’m Jenna Smart, Tyler’s PA.”

Ray shook her hand, and then myself. “Yeah, thanks,” he said. “I’m Detective Vecchio, and this here’s Constable Fraser. Mr. Shane said you were bringing over the documents?”

“Yes,” she said, and dug into her attaché case, explaining what each manila folder was as she handed it over to me. “These are the employee records, every cast and crew member that has ever worked on the show. These,” this manilla folder was nearly an inch thick and obviously handled often, “are the letters from the EEM.”

“Thank you kindly,” I said, and opened the first folder, scanning the names and phone numbers. It was a habit I had developed since starting my work in Chicago; having an eidetic memory was more useful for contacts than for literary references, no matter how apt those references may be.

“Your boss is in the kitchen,” Ray said. “But we’d like to ask you a few questions first, if that’s okay?”

Jenna nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Whatever you need.”

The list of employees wasn’t very long. Mr. Shane was at the top of the list, with Jenna underneath. The “cast” was listed first. Andrea and Timothy were listed as “Lead investigators,” and David was listed as “Tech.” Charlie was listed as “consultant-psychic”. “Jay,” was the last on the list, under “historian.”

“First, can you run me through the events as you saw them, from the beginning?” Ray asked, and I knew he was looking at her, pad and pen nowhere in sight. I gave them half an ear as I read.

“Sure,” she said. “The beginning, wow. Um…”

Next came the crew. Mitch Wilson was first, listed as “principal cameraman,” and there were two cameramen listed under him, Steven and Jamal. Then was lighting, Kathy, and sound, Frank. From the shared last name, they were either siblings or a married couple. The same phone number was listed for both, which pointed to the latter but did not rule out the former.

“Honestly, I think it started years ago. Before my time, anyway. I met Tyler in college when he tried to pick me up at a bar. He told me his house was haunted, I told him that was the lamest line I ever heard, and he said, ‘no, it’s not a line. It’s the truth,’ and while I still didn’t go home with him, we started talking about ghosts whenever we ran into each other.” Jenna shrugged. “He grew up here, and said the place has always been haunted. Low-level stuff. I was a communications major, and when he learned that, he became obsessed with trying to document the paranormal. Mitch was my boyfriend at the time, and the three of us conducted our first paranormal investigation here in this room.” She dug into her satchel again and pulled out a VHS tape. “I brought a copy. Didn’t know if you’d want it or not.”

Ray shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt,” he said, and I took the tape with a smile. Jenna flushed, fluttering slightly, but she regained her composure well enough. I could sense Ray was laughing at me, but didn’t deign to rise to his bait.

“She’s a good looking woman,” my father said in my ear. “And she likes ghosts!”

“Dad,” I sighed under my breath, and tucked the tape under my arm.

“Anyway,” she said. “We caught enough on that tape that we decided to try it again. We put up flyers on the quad, and started our own paranormal investigation agency. Someone at the _Sci-Fi_ channel caught wind of us, and here we are.” She grinned, but it didn’t last.

“As for the harassment,” she shrugged. “We had some flack while we were still in school. Nothing serious. Flyers torn down. Spray-paint over others. One ambitious zealot preaching hellfire and brimstone outside our door until campus security dragged him away. Then, when the show began, we started getting letters from the loony brigade.”

Jenna looked over her shoulder towards the kitchen, and then leaned in towards us. We leaned forward to join her. “I know Tyler thinks it’s them, but honestly? I don’t think so. Protests, sure. Nasty things on your doorstep? Totally. Mean letters to the editor, of course. But this? Breaking and entering? Destruction of property? Faking a haunting? They’d never go for it; it wouldn’t be fighting evil with the righteous path, or whatever.”

“So what do you think is going on?” Ray asked, matching her tone.

She looked between us, waiting for judgement. When she found none, she said, “I think he’s being haunted. I think something happened that woke up whatever has been…let’s say _living_ in this house for years. I think something really scared him, and instead of dealing with it, he’s been in denial and he’s going to get _hurt._ ” She stopped, and backed away, swallowing thickly.

I placed a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at me. “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” I promised. “Whatever the outcome.”

She laughed bitterly. “Really?” she asked. “I just told the cops I think my boss is being _haunted_. You think I’m crazy.”

“Not true,” I said. “The Inuit believe that there is more to this world than that which we can see, and I myself have seen things that I cannot explain. While I do not deny that a physical perpetrator is easier to prosecute, I am not so quick to dismiss other possibilities.”

She looked at me blankly for a moment, then looked at Ray. “We get a lot of oddball cases,” he said. “Ghosts wouldn’t be the weirdest thing.”

She started to smile before an odd look crossed her face. “You’re serious.”

“Ma’am,” I said. “We never joke about justice.”

“I might,” Ray said. “He doesn’t. It’s a Mountie thing.”

“Mountie?” she asked, and then nodded. “Oh, of course. The uniform. I had wondered.” Of course, she then asked, “What’s a Mountie doing in Chicago?”

Ray gestured towards me, as if giving me the floor, and I said, “I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father, and for reasons that don’t need to be explored at this juncture, I have remained, attached as liaison to the Canadian Consulate.” I turned to Ray. “Thank you, kindly.” It had been several weeks since he had let me complete my introduction.

Ray shrugged. “No problem.” He leaned in towards Jenna to say, conspiratorially, “He gets cranky if I don’t let him get it all out once in a while.” Jenna clearly had little knowledge of what Ray was saying, but was slowly relaxing, and giggled when Ray obviously let her in on some “inside information.”

“I don’t like his methods,” Dad said. “But I gotta admit, the Yank gets results.”

I bit my tongue and cracked my neck. “Be that as it may,” I said, to both my father and Ray. “Ms. Avery.”

“Jenna, please.”

“Very well. Jenna. If your suspicions are correct, who do you recommend we speak with, first.”

Jenna bit her lip, thinking. “Normally, I’d say Charlie, but…” she sighed. “Talk to Mitch. He can give you more evidence. Maybe then you can convince Charlie to talk to you.”

I looked at Ray. He nodded. Very well. Mitch would be our next step.

“Thank you, kindly,” I said, tipping my hat. I could hear that Mr. Shane was still on the phone and I said we must be going, and asked if Jenna would give our goodbyes. She agreed, taking one of Ray’s cards, and with a breath of relief, we left Mr. Shane’s house.

Ray’s agitation was obvious, and the cause was worrying. Ray and I both knew that he _had_ seen something in Mr. Shane’s house; we both had. That he would deny it to someone who had not been there was no great surprise. Ray was very particular about the image he presented to the world, and there was no room for “freaky ghost stuff, Frase. I don’t want none of them paranormal shenanigans.”

I wondered sometimes, in one of my more uncharitable moments, if Ray would be so against acknowledging the existence of the paranormal if Steve McQueen had ever starred in a movie as a clairvoyant or medium. There is far more to the other side than the continued presence of my father, and if Ray is truly as sensitive as I believe he is, then what horrors he could have seen; he is the Horatio to my Hamlet, seeing but not understanding and afraid.

I half expected my father to comment at that moment, somehow knowing the comparison made and ready to defend his character; he is no ghostly shade, moaning and demanding revenge. He is a Mountie, and made of sterner stuff that that. No sir, you wouldn’t see Robert Fraser beseeching his son for revenge. (No; he would only lose his temper in the presence of his killer, and try to enact a wild justice of his own; ineffectual due to his own incorporeality.)

But my father had made himself absent, and I wasleft alone with my thoughts as I followed Ray to his car, worry steeping. Dief, behind me, was equally quiet, and I know he was just as concerned.

I sat, the doors closing in tandem, and I opened my mouth to speak, to profess my worry in the honest way that always seems to disarm him into honesty. He surprised me, and spoke first.

“I saw something in that house,” Ray said, voice tight the same way it used to get when he would talk about life with Stella just before their divorce. “I know that. You know that. There is no denying that. But that guy? Does not deserve to know what I’ve seen, do you understand me? What we saw—it’s not something that should get digested.”

I blinked, running his words over in my head. “You mean dissected?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Taken apart. Broken down.” Ray turned on the car and put her in gear, a violent, practiced action. “You don’t look too closely at things like that, Frase. You just don’t.”

I knew what he was saying. As a general rule, I do not believe in absolute evil. Human are not capable of absolutes, and to think such would be an injustice as an officer of the law. Further, it would...depress me, too much, to think humans could be wholly evil. Even Victoria had—

No.

The presence in that room _had_ been the worst kind of evil; in all my years of policing, in the hard years before my life as a Mountie traveling in the empty spaces of the world, I had never encountered a presence of such pure malice. To investigate further would be to invite that darkness into our lives.

And yet, our hands were tied.

“We have to, Ray,” I said, quietly. “Mr. Shane is depending on us.”

“ _Mr. Shane,_ ” Ray imitated, mocking “is determined to bury his head in the sand, and I say fuck him.”

“Ray,” I chastised, a vocal reflex.

“No, _fuck_ him,” Ray spat. “Fuck him and his fucking haunted house, his fucking ghost show, and his fucking _commissioner uncle._ Fuck him right where it hurts.” He stopped at a red light, fuming silently. I let him; he would not thank me for interrupting him. “And fuck us,” he said, quietly. Defeated. “Because we have to help him, so we will.”


	5. Ray

Being in that house felt like drowning—not like drowning where you’re underwater and can’t reach the surface, but drowning where you’re barely treading water and the waves are crashing over your head and saltwater is getting in your eyes and up your nose and you’re getting just enough air to cough and panic.

Stepping outside was like finally getting pulled out of the water, gasping for air and shaking, exhausted but so happy to be able to breathe, to not have to fight anymore.

We were both a mess. Fraser had this look on his face like I’d never seen on him; It went so far past his usual thinking faces that it looked like his thoughts _hurt_ him. _Wearied him._

Fraser looked haunted, and very human.

We sat in the GTO for a long moment after my outburst, Frase staring at the hat in his hands and me leaning on the wheel.

“Whadda ya think, Frase?” I asked quietly. It could’ve meant anything. Who do you like for this? Is Shane a big, fat phony? Where do you want to go for lunch? Who’s your pick for this years Curling Championship?

But Fraser sighed, a heavy, shuddering thing, and answered the real question.

“I think we’re about to be tested, Ray,” he said. “And we can sorely afford to fail.”  
Dief whined and put his muzzle on Fraser’s shoulder. Fraser scratched behind Dief’s ears.

He was right—of course he was right; I knew it in my gut, just like I knew I’d have to tell him everything. Anything less wouldn’t be buddies.

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I was afraid of.” I started the car. “Let’s eat, a’right? That Polish place’s around here, and a stack of pirogues is what a guy needs to sort himself out.”

After a moment, Fraser hummed. “As you say, Ray.”

I grinned. I’d discovered Fraser’s secret love affair with Polish food when my mom’s _paprikash_ kept disappearing from my ‘fridge. I still don’t know if Fraser knows I know, but he’s _so_ bad at hiding his excitement, it’s a surprise the whole station doesn’t know. Then again, the boys at the 2-7 can be so fucking blind when it comes to Fraser, so. Ya know. They might not.

“Good. Greatness,” I said. “But no cabbage for the wolf.”

“Of course not, Ray.”

Man, there ain’t nothin’ like fresh, homemade pierogies. This place made it all—potato, cabbage, cheese and onion, and the sweet ones, like prune.

Yeah, that’s right. I said prune. You got a problem with that?

Didn’t think so.

Fraser certainly didn’t have any problem with them. He’d mentioned once how much he loved fruit, that, as a kid, sometimes so much as an apple was a treat, and I’d yet to see him balk at any.

And, since this was Fraser, he’d manage to charm the little old Polish ladies that ran the place. I’d always thought they were sisters, but Fraser had said they were “roommates,” (well, more accurately, he said that while there was a “level of intimacy that often spoke of family, the flavor of intimacy spoke more of chosen family, such as a spouse. In addition, they had none of the same defining characteristics that would mark them as siblings.” Translation:

Fraser had even managed to get a pair of tough-as-nails lesbian grannies to faun over him.

It’s inhuman; I can’t describe it.

But, since they fawned over me by extension, I sure as hell wasn’t complaining, especially not when they placed plates overloaded with buttery, savory pirogues.

“Everything looks better over a plate of pierogies,” I had said the first time we had been there, when Fraser’s eyebrow was asking me all sorts of questions like “why are we here, Ray? There are malfeasants on the loose.” (Yeah, even his eyebrows talk like him. Go figure). I didn’t mind the interrogation; this was information that needed to be shared, and with Fraser’s background, I had a feeling he wouldn’t know about the magical properties of pirogues. There were a lot of things like that that Fraser didn’t know, and, well—I _am_ a cop. A detective. A damn good one too; it’s one of the few things that I _know_ I’m good at.

That means I can see the pieces for what they are: put Mountie with crazy Arctic wilderness survival skills in Chicago together with conversations with Dief that sound like my Papa and Nana, filter it through the Perfect Mountie routine, and get one lonely-ass guy with a lot of pain in his past and some serious intimacy issues.

And like I said, I may be D-U-M, but I ain’t stupid.

I’m the second of the two people on this Green Earth that Fraser’s let in, and the first one fucked off while Fraser was away. I _get it,_ okay?

So, I show him the wonders of pierogies. I don’t let him pull that Mountie shit when it’s just the two of us, and I play along with him when it’s for other people to keep reminding him that _I know_. I talk to Dief like he can understand me, like I would talk to my own kids; like they’re just smaller people. (And, I swear to God, the dog actually talks _back_ ).

This time, when Muriel brought over our food (and another paper plate with some sausage stuffing for Dief), the tension in Fraser’s shoulders visibly loosened, and he took his first bite without waiting for me, which was a sign to just how hungry, and rattled he was.

Either way, there was a plate of delicious calling my name, and I was going to answer.

Fraser finished eating before I did, but then again he usually did. I don’t know if it was something he learned, or if he was just naturally fast; I know I slowed down when I didn’t have to fight my brother for seconds. Eating slowly was a luxury, and I was going to milk it. He was used to it, and started to think at me out loud while I ate.

“The way I see it,” he began. “Is that there are two possibilities. Either Mr. Shane is being haunted, or he isn’t. If he is, then we know how it’s happening, though we still don’t have a motive. If it isn’t then we need to discover how as well as why.”

I nodded, mouth stuffed with potato and pasta, to show I was listening, and held up one finger then turned my hand over and spread my palm wide.

Fraser sighed. “While I agree that the first option seems the more likely of the two, however improbable that sounds, I still suggest that we investigate the second path. We may discover a less supernatural answer to our questions.”

He didn’t really believe that. I _knew_ he didn’t really believe that. I could tell in the way he cracked his neck, ran his fingernail over his expressive eyebrow. He wanted to believe it, though. Couldn’t say I blame him. I wanted to, too.

I swallowed my last bite of pierogie, and pulled out my phone and my notebook. I dialed the station, and waited for someone to pick up the phone. It was Frannie.

_“Chicago Police Department, twenty-seventh district, this is Francesca speaking, how may I help you?”_

“Jesus, Frannie, you’re an aide, not a receptionist.”

I swear to you, I could hear her rolling her eyes. _“Oh, it’s you. Hi, Ray.”_

I grinned at Fraser. “Always good to hear your dulcet tones.”

_“Dulcet this, jackass, what do you want?”_

“The number for the EEM.”

There was a pause, and I heard the clacking of long nails on computer keys. _“Why do you need the number of those whackos?”_ she asked. _“Oh! Are you going to go arrest them?”_

“I would be so lucky,” I said. “The number, Frannie.”

_“Hold your horses,”_ she snapped. _“Here.”_ She rattled off the number, and I wrote it down, then read it back to her. _“You got it. Anything else?”_

“Nah,” I said. “Thanks Frannie.”

Fraser leaned over the table and spoke loudly into the phone. “Thank you, kindly, Francesca.”

_“You’re welcome, Fraser!”_ Frannie called back, and I yanked the phone away from my ear, snapping the case shut. I rubbed my ear. Woman’s got a set a lungs on her. I re-opened the phone, and carefully punched in the number for the Eastside Evangelical Mission. A secretary answered on the third ring, told me that the EEM respects the boys in blue, yada-yada, but that I still had to make an appointment, as nobody was in the office now, and wouldn’t be until the next day. I told her to expect us “the next day,” then, and hung up the phone. I sighed, rubbed my hand over my face, and turned to Fraser.

“So, where’s this Mitch guy?”

Fraser opened his notebook. “He lives on the other side of town, but at this time of day, he should be at his studio. It’s not far from here.”

“Great, greatness.” I said, and stood. I hated lingering after meals; if I sat still for too long, I’d never want to move again. I dropped some bills on the table, twice what we owed (like I said, they _fawned_ ). “Let’s go rattle his chains.”

*

Mitch’s “studio” was a basement apartment that he rented in the middle of student off-campus housing around the University of Chicago. Apparently, this ghost hunting business wasn’t a full-time gig; he taught two classes a semester film and media studies.

He answered after the second knock.

“Hold on, hold on! Let me get my...” He trailed off as he saw us on his steps. “You’re not the pizza guy.”

“No sir,” Fraser said in what I called his _civil servant voice_. “I am Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP—”

“And he’s liasoning with the Chicago PD. Which is me. Detective Vecchio.”

This Mitch’s eyes were narrowed, and he had one of those smiles, like he had figured out the joke but was playing along. Wake up, pal. This ain’t no joke.

“We’re here to talk to you about your employer at _Paranormal Detectives,_ ” Fraser started. Mitch paled so fast, he looked like he’d seen a ghost, heh. “Mr. Taylor Shane?”

“Uh yeah,” Mitch said, and stepped back. “Come on in.”

I stepped through the doorway, giving my best Steve McQueen, ready to tough this guy out, and Fraser walks though behind me, tipping his hat with that “Thank you, kindly,” the good cop to my bad cop, and we’re so in-sync, we’re a duet, the one-two punch, and after before I’m riding the buzz high; I want to knock some heads together, rattle some chains, rattle _his_ chains—shake, baby, shake.

I turn my shake into a 360 spin, looking about the room. The layout reminds me of my first apartment, the one I shared with Ricky (Stel was still in the dorms) during my first year at the academy after my Dad kicked my ass to the curb: low ceilings; small, high windows that let in nearly no light; a big living room/kitchen filled salvaged furniture from twenty years ago, covered in bed sheets for the illusion of class, but mostly just to keep your ass clean from the disintegrating upholstery. The place smelled of mold, hot pockets, and stale beer.

Mitch closed the door behind us, and I looked back at Fraser as he took in the room. I wonder what he thought of the place; I read the reports about Fraser’s “bachelor pad” on West Racine; he wasn’t the type of guy to wallow in his own filth the way most of us schmucks did. He wouldn’t look at the dishes in the sink and see “no need to clean if it’s only your loser ass.” He wouldn’t look at the couch and remember a time when you were living with bare bones, and still not quite able to stretch that last paycheck to your next one, though, to be fair, he’d probably sat on many that smelled worse.

“So, how can I help, uh…you?” Mitch asked, and I smirked right at him. Mitch paled a little. Good. Fear the bad cop. Fraser, looked away, scratching the side of his nose, and I knew he was hiding a smile; one day, I’ll even get him to admit it.

“Are you aware that Mr. Shane has been the victim of some rather bizarre threats to his person?” Fraser asked, standing at parade rest. God, the things I could do to him while he stood there and _had_ to take it—

Ray, you goddamned dog, _Cool it_. Lust after you partner in private.  
“You mean the hauntings?” Mitch replied. I looked at Fraser.

“So, you know about them?” I prompted. Mitch nodded.

“Sure. We all do. It’s some pretty wild stuff. We’ve been trying to get him to let us do a real investigation into his place for years—that first one was so amateurish—and now this.” He shrugged. 

“And you do not believe this is the work of the Eastside Evangelical Mission?” Fraser prompted.

Mitch snorted. “Those dickbags don’t know their ass from their elbows, ‘scuse my French.”

Fraser opened his mouth, dumb Mountie look firmly in place the way it always was when people used what he felt was unnecessary profanity, to probably say something about how, as a representative of the Government of Canada, and thus required to speak both English and French fluently (they were a bilingual nation, you know), he _did_ know French and was suitably certain that what Mitch had said was not, in fact, French—as much as I love to see Fraser fuck with people, I was pretty sure Mitch was wise enough to get that he was being mocked. That shit was only ever funny when the person was dumb enough to be a dirtbag, so I shook my head at him—subtle, you know?

And he fucking pouted at me. It only lasted a minute, and Mitch certainly didn’t see, but I did and that was a motherfuckin’ _pout_.

Dudley Do-Right my ass.

“I see,” Fraser said instead. “And your fellow crew members, they feel the same?”

Mitch shrugged. “For the most part, yeah. I know Kathy does, and Frank helps David with the EMP stuff, sometimes. He wants to be an investigator. Steve and Jamal...If they believe, they haven’t said anything. But they don’t deny it, either.” 

“I see,” Fraser said, and wrote something down on his little notebook. 

“Hey!” Mitch said, perking up. “Maybe you can do it!”

What? No. Nononononono.

Fraser cleared his throat. Good. He didn’t like it either. “Do what, precisely,” he asked.

“Convince Tyler to do that special.”

“What special?” I asked, but the sinking feeling in my gut told me I knew exactly what he was talking about. It was that or the pirogues, and comfort pirogues never sat wrong.

“The idea started maybe three months ago.” Mitch moved to sit on the couch, and stopped, hovering halfway down. “Is it okay if I sit?”

“Please,” Fraser said, gesturing with his hand. Mitch sat, gratefully. As if it was Fraser’s house. Jesus. Whatever. I grabbed the more stable-looking of the table chairs, spun it on its leg, and sat, arms folded over the back. Fraser stood at my back, falling into place.

“Thanks,” Mitch said. “Like I said, three months ago, Tyler gets this idea to do a _Paranormal Detectives_ special, heavily promoted by the network, special night, two-hour time-slot, the works. The draw? We were going to investigate Tyler’s house.”

“It was Mr. Shane’s idea?” Fraser asked. I could _hear_ the wheels turning in his voice. If it was Shane’s idea, what changed his mind? Probably the actual haunting. Whatever it was in his house, it didn’t want the publicity.

“Yeah. That’s why we’ve been so keen on it, you know? There’s a lot of activity in the house—that’s television gold, man. We’re bound to get proof, and think of the kind of pull we’d get being the team that proved, once and for all, that ghosts were real.”

Jesus fucking’…

Fraser cleared his throat, the same kind of white-noise harrumphing he used occasionally when he needed to drown out Turnbull. “Please, continue, Mr. Wilson.

Mitch nodded. “Right, so, everything’s going fine. We pitch it to the network, they love it, we’re green-lit, and everything good. We usually meet at the offices, but they were, I dunno, exterminating that day or something, so we met in Tyler’s kitchen. We’re hashing out the details, getting ready to start the shoot, and halfway through, he gets up to take a piss. He’s gone for a little while, I don’t know how long, but long enough that we notice, right? Jenna’s giving me these looks, like I should go look for him, but not saying anything, so I’m not saying anything. That house is creepy, man, and I only wander around if I’m following somebody with a camera. Anyway, before we send out the search party, he comes back. Everything’s cool, we keep talking for maybe another half an hour, but Tyler doesn’t say anything.

“‘Tyler, man you okay?’ I asked him. ‘You’ve been real quiet.’

“‘We’re not doing it,’ he said. I look at Jenna, because seriously, man, what the fuck? ‘It’s playing into their hands. They want this public and we can’t give them what they want.’

“Immediately, my mind’s thinking ‘shit, the _things_ in this house are giving him orders,’ but Jenna asked who, and that’s when Tyler came out with the whole Eastside Evangelical Mission crap.” Mitch shook his head. “And that was that. Jenna talked to the network people, got it pushed back a few months, for a Halloween special. We’re hoping we can convince him to do it; that house needs to be investigating.” Mitch grinned. “And now you’re here. Maybe you can help.”

“Mr. Wilson,” Fraser began. “It is Mr. Shane’s private property. As officers of the law we are bound to honor his wishes.”

I snorted. “Plus that place is bad news. You don’t want to go messing with that.”

Mitch turned to me, and I clamped my jaw shut. _Shit_ why did I open my mouth. Fraser was looking at me, too. I could feel his gaze beaming into the back of my head. _shit Shit SHIT_

“You saw something,” Mitch said.

Okay. Fuck no.

I stood. “Thank you for your time, Mr Wilson,” I said, twisting the chair back into position. I headed for the door, and thank God, Fraser followed. “Don’t skip town, yada yada, if we need to talk to you again, we’ll be in touch.”

“Wait,” Mitch called, and got to us just as I put my hand on the knob. “You believe,” he said. “I know you believe. Jenna and I, we just want Tyler back. We need to investigate that house. He’s in danger. It might be the only way.”

Yeah. And it might get all of us dead. But I set my jaw and nodded my head, once, and pushed my way past him into the sunlight, Fraser half a step behind me, as always.

“Ray,” he began.

“In the car,” I said, cutting him off.

“As you wish,” he said, and followed me back to the GTO, silent the whole way.


	6. Fraser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Here's the chapter. The next *should* be up next Wednesday. :)

Several times I opened my mouth to say something, to ask what exactly it was that sent Ray running, but we had been partners for too long. I knew why he ran; I didn’t need him to tell me to make it true, and if I pushed too soon he would shut down. Ray usually trusted himself with me. I had to trust that this time would be no different. 

Ray called Sandor from the car, and by the time we arrived at Ray’s apartment, he was standing there with the pizza, looking anxious.

“I don’t know what you want, Ray,” Sandor said as we approached. “I ain’t heard nothin’ lately.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Ray said.

“It’s true Ray, I swear!” Sandor said, holding up the hand that didn’t have the pizza.. 

“You swear?” Ray said, and crossed his arms. 

“I do!”

Ray narrowed his eyes at Sandor and I stood back to watch, face impassive. Sandor looked at me nervously—had ever since the incident with Vulpe; I didn’t mind. It was refreshing to occasionally play the “bad cop”—and Ray snapped his fingers.

“Hey! Eyes on me!” He grabbed the pizza and opened the box. “We’ve been over this. Where’s the pineapple?”

Sandor’s forehead glistened with sudden sweat. “I told you before, Ray—”

Ray held up his hand. “I don’t care. The wolf says he wants pineapple. You want to tell the wolf he can’t have pineapple?”

Sandor looked down and Dief bared his teeth at him; he stepped back, and Ray shoved money at him. “Next time, don’t come here without the pineapple.”

“Yes, Ray,” Sandor said, tripping over his feet as he tried to walk away backwards.

“Ray,” I said, gently chastising as Sandor fled. Ray grinned at me. It didn’t reach his eyes, though it was clear Ray wanted it to. 

“Yeah, Frase?”

I shut my mouth and gestured for Ray to let us up and into his apartment. Dief scrambled up the stairs after Ray, scenting the pizza and I shook my head. “You’re a wolf, for God’s sake. Would it hurt you to have a little dignity?”

Over the past few months, Ray’s apartment had become quite familiar to me—familiar enough that I stripped my serge jacket without prompting, hanging it on the coat hanger Ray started leaving by his door, and placing my hat up on the hook. My boots came off next—placed next to Ray’s own in a manner that struck me as quite domestic. But then again, Ray always had a sense of domesticity under his otherwise prickly exterior—a symptom of a romantic who desired a long term partner. _Like me_ my mind whispered, but I had grown used to ignoring such promptings (even as it grew harder to do so).

I enjoyed these domestic moments more that I should, considering that Ray and I were not romantically involved. For all of the intimacy partnership brings, and all the that marriage metaphors my father could use—thinking of being married to Ray did not help my self control. Sometimes, Ray would look at me, or touch me, or speak to me in such a manner that I was convinced Ray would be amenable to my advances, but the fear would choke me, and the risk was too great. 

I know that I am starved for touch. I am self aware enough to admit that, and to be apprehensive that I’ve taken Ray’s natural affection and twisted it into what I want rather than what he offered. Still, I find it hard to stop. 

By the time I was sufficiently “chilled out” and had joined Ray, placing the folders and the VHS tape on the table as I passed, he had changed into a pair of loose, low-riding sweat pants, and opened a bottle of beer. He held it up, tilting it towards me in a silent offer. _You want one?_

I don’t drink, as a general rule. I have seen too much of what a reliance of alcohol can lead to. Then again, I am not usually investigating a crime with such a violently paranormal vein. “Please,” I said. “Thank you, kindly.” 

Ray snorted, pulled half his mouth back in a smirk and passed over the beer he had opened for himself, and popping the cap off of another. He takes the beer, the pizza, and three paper plates with him into the living room. The pizza went onto the coffee table, we went onto the couch, and Dief settled with his nose on Ray’s knee. 

Ray began to flip through the channels as I divided up the pizza; two slices each for Ray and I and a slice on his own plate for Dief. I might not like to feed his habits, but sometimes we both deserves nice things. I anticipated Ray stopping on a sports channel, as he always claimed the game distracted him enough to think, but instead he stopped on an unfamiliar title sequence with a small noise of surprise. It was clear a minute later when the show’s title _Paranormal Detectives_ flashed across the screen.

“Mr. Shane’s show,” I said.

“Yep,” Ray agreed around a bite of his pizza. I had stopped trying to get Ray to stop talking with his mouth full, and simply nodded and tried to focus on the screen. It was harder than it looked. Ray was warm next to me, loose with the first flush of alcohol, and barely dressed.

On the screen Mr. Shane introduced the location through a series of unconventional (and overly dramatic) camera angles—an abandoned hospital—and the circumstances—ghostly apparitions in the hall, pulled hair, creepy feelings—but Ray was licking sauce off of his thumb and I found my attention hopelessly divided.

“Not hungry?” Ray asked.

“Hm?” I blinked at him for a moment before the question registered. “No, I am,” I said. “I was just caught up in the cinematography—those camera angles really create an atmosphere of—“

“Shut up and eat your pizza,” Ray said. It was fond, and I dutifully took a bite. It had grown colder than I liked. How long had I been staring at Ray? I had to control myself. I _would_ control myself.

The format of the show was simple. Mr. Shane introduced the ‘case,’ then there were two rounds of ‘investigation,’ first with the team split one way, then with them split in a different way. The “detectives” would ask questions, mostly provocative, and sometimes go as far as insulting the spiritual entity. They would get responses that ranged from ambiguous noises that the main camera did not pick up, to voice recordings that only sometimes almost sounded like what the ‘detective’ said it did. The show ended with a reveal to the person or persons who called them in.

While it was presented in a manner that seemed conclusive, there was nothing absolute about any of their findings. In fact, there seemed to be a level of charlatan fakery involved, some king of slight of hand for the sake of entertainment. I doubt, in the case we watched, that they experienced any actual paranormal activity.

Ray snorted at one particular stretch of logic, and I admit I do not remember which it was because he did so with his lips pressed to the rim of the beer bottle, and I was mesmerized by the press of pink flesh, shining faintly, by the way Ray’s throat worked as he swallowed. It was all to easy to picture Ray’s lips shiny and swollen from hard kisses, throat working for a different reason entirely.

It was only when I caught myself leaning in that I realized how far I had gone. I stood, and Ray looked at me with some surprise.

“It’s getting late,” I said. 

Ray gestured towards the pile of evidence, and I winced internally. It really was not like me to leave evidence unexamined, but my need for solace was an omnipresent weight on my chest. I did what I do best, and made excuses. 

“I know Ray, and I apologize, but I really should be getting back to the consulate. I have first shift on Sentry tomorrow.”

Ray sighed and pulled a face. “I hate that she makes you do that shit.”

“Yes, well,” I said. “I am always proud to serve--,”

“You hate it too,” Ray cut me off. “Don’t try to pull that shit with me.”

“I’m not pulling any shit,” I said, and kept my eyes focused on my boots. I could feel even Dief rolling his eyes at that one. I laced up my right boot and paused, my fingers holding the laces taught. “Yes. I agree that I find the activity unpleasant. The forced inactivity irks, and the tendency for tourists to stare is…unwelcome.” I tied off my boot with more force than necessary. “But I will do my duty, even if it seems…”

“Pointless?” Ray asked, almost amused.

“Yes,” I said, and laced up my second boot. I stood, and pulled on my Serge. I started to do up the buttons from the bottom.

“Masks,” Ray said, and I looked at him. His non-sequiturs usually made more sense. “They itch after a while.” He was watching me with eyes that always saw more than I wanted them too. I couldn’t hold his gaze. “Ain’t worth it, in my opinion.”

It was a statement and an offer all in one. After a long moment, I nodded. “Understood,” I said, and fled.

***

Ray showed no sign of the previous night’s revelation the next morning, for which I was grateful; I needed the normalcy of our interaction to regain my equilibrium. He pulled up in front of the consulate just as the noon bells chimed, and I walked away from my post as soon as the last bell rang out, cutting off the, otherwise pleasant I’m sure, talkative older woman who had been discussing the merits of timeshares in Boca for some unknown reason. 

“What?” Ray asked as I shut the door. “You don’t want to go to Florida?”

“I have to admit, I’ve never had the urge.” 

“Probably smart.”

“Please drive away, Ray. Quickly?”

Ray grinned, and pulled out into traffic. 

Jay Carlson lived just outside of Chicago city limits, in a suburb that one time may have been called “ethnic,” then “quaint,” but now gave off such a strong aura of Americana that it hardly seemed real.

Ray took a steadying breath once he parked and let it out in a short huff. It seemed to clear his mind, and he took the lead up to the front door. I followed, with Dief keeping pace. The house was well-kept, lawn landscaped with an amateur hand, but obviously one that cared for the work. There were several toys littered about the yard in the hap-hazard way children had with their things: Plastic balls, a skipping rope, a green hulahoop and a frisbe with the “JuffyLube” logo. Abandoned by the door was a bicycle with streamers, height raised to that of a six-to-eight-year-old, and a purple plastic Big Wheel lay on it’s side next to it; Mr. Carlson had two daughters, one seven, one four.

Sure enough, when Ray rang the bell, the door was answered by the younger of the two, dressed in a pink tutu and what appeared to be the top half of a Spiderman costume, brown hair pulled back into lopsided pigtails. Behind her, her older sister watched, dressed more uniformly in a pink cowgirl outfit, clearly repurposed from last Halloween by the way it was just a bit too small, watched them warily.

“Who’re you?” The little girl asked. She made no move to open the glass storm door.

Ray crouched down, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. He showed her his badge, and said, “Hey, there. My name is Detective Vecchio. I’m a policeman, and this is my partner, Constable Fraser. He’s a policeman, too. From Canada. We’d like to talk to your dad. Is he around?”

Once again, I was struck by the ease with which Ray spoke to children, and ached for him. He had admitted one night over a post-case beer, after being on high alert for over 37 hours while searching for a missing five-year-old, that he had given up on having children. “Not because I don’t want them,” he said. “I love kids. Kids are greatness. Greatinski. Greataliscious. But it doesn’t look like my life is going in a “and then they had kids,” direction, and that’s okay.”

My doubt must have shown on my face, because he had waved his hand at it, saying, “Nah, nah. I mean it. ‘Cause for the first time since, you know, _ever,_ I actually _like_ where my life is going. Besides, Frannie’s going to have enough kids for all of us, you’ll see.”

I hadn’t known how to respond to that then, but it hadn’t mattered as Ray had dropped to an exhausted sleep soon after. Now, however, I was reminded of that conversation, and wondered, hoped, _prayed_ that, whatever direction Ray believe he was headed, was a path that I, too, could follow.

“He’s upstairs,” The older sister said, then, without taking her eyes from us, screamed, “DADDY! THE POLICE ARE HERE!”

“Great Scott!” My father said, appearing by my left side. Dief whined. “She’s got a set of lungs on her.”

“Not now,” I muttered under my breath. I could hear a panicked clamor from upstairs, no doubt because of the unfortunate phrasing his daughter had used, and Dief huffed out a laugh. My father scowled at him.

“What are you laughing at,” He groused, but Dief didn’t answer him. His laughing had caught the attention of the younger girl, and her face had lit up with such joy.

“Doggie!” She cried out, and that was apparently enough to breath through whatever safety lecture she had received, as she practically pounced on the door handle and flew from the house to hug, pet, and ruffle the fur of Diefenbaker. Dief, for his part, yipped at her, and leaned into her touch.

“Shameless,” I muttered at him, and took a step back as the older sister followed, albliet more cautiously.

“Is it okay?” She asked, manners clearly more ingrained in her, and I nodded.

“Perfectly fine,” I said. “He’s grown quite soft.”

Dief growled at that, but it lacked heat, and it made the younger girl chuckle.

“Anna?! Kaitlin?!” Their father called, and fairly stumbled out of the door himself. He was unkept, dressed in ratty sweats and hair mussed. There were pressure lines on his face and a wildness in his gaze that clearly indicated that he had been woken by his daughter’s cry.

“Girls!” He scolded. “You know better than to go outside with strangers!”

“But they’re policemen,” the older girl, Anna (now that she was close enough, I could see the necklace with her name glinting at her throat.)

“Doggie!” Kaitlin said, again, and Dief rewarded her by licking her face until she giggled.

Ray held up his badge as Carlson turned to him. “We’re here to talk to you about your employer, Mr. Shane’s, recent harassment.”

Carlson stood and opened the door. “You might as well come in.” He rolled his eyes as the girls turned to him, and said before they could even ask, “Yes, the dog can come inside, too.”

“His name is Diefenbaker,” I added. At Carlson’s look, I amended. “He responds well to ‘Dief’ if he responds at all. He’s quite deaf.” I left out the fact that he was, actually, mostly wolf; most fathers didn’t respond well to knowing their children were playing fetch with a wolf, even if said wolf was city-soft and lazy.

We—Ray, my father, and I—followed Carlson into his kitchen while the girls took Dief into the living room.

“Sorry,” Carlson said, yawning as he put on a pot of coffee. “I kept odd hours before I started working on a show that films mostly at night, and having two balls of energy running around isn’t helping any.”

“It’s perfectly alright,” I said, watching Dief roll around on his belly to the delighted laughter of Carlson’s daughters.

“How long have you known Mr. Shane,” Ray asked. Carlson frowned as he filled the back of the coffee pot with water.

“The show’s been on for three seasons? So…three years? Three and a half? I was hired by Jenna after they filmed the pilot to do work behind the scenes. I didn’t meet Mr. Shane until halfway through the first season filming, when the producers decided they wanted me on the hunts as well.” He shrugged. “We don’t talk much. Its very business-like.” He paused. “Honestly, I get the feeling he doesn’t like me much, and I’m more than happy to speak to him as little as possible.”

“Is there anything specific you can recall that gives you that impression?” I asked. Carlson shook his head.

“Just a feeling, you know? He always seems distant when he’s talking to me, like he can just barely bring himself to listen to what I have to say. It’s better on air, but even then. And it’s not just me, other people have commented on it. Fans and the like.”

I nodded. “And you are aware of the recent trouble Mr. Shane has been having?”

“You mean those Eastside Evangelical Whackadoodles?” Carlson asked, he snorted, the sound mixing with the first gurgling bubbles of the coffee pot. “Yeah. Everyone on set is aware. It was all he talked about for a good month, month-and-a-half, while we were planning the special in his house. He even told me about it, which was weird because, like I said, we don’t talk.” He scratched at the stubble on his cheek. “Then about two weeks back, he stops talking. Two days later, he cancels the show.” He shrugged. “That was the end of it, for me. I don’t usually see him in-between shooting. I speak mostly to Jenna, look for probable locations and the like.”

Ray nodded, looking thoughtful. “You said you had started working on the special,” I said. “Did you do any research on Mr. Shane’s house.”

Carlson nodded. “Yeah, of course.” He leaned back against the counter, folding his arms across his chest. “Not that he believed me, of course.”

“What do you mean?” Ray asked.

Carlson sighed. “I’ve been trying to teach my girls recycling and eco-responsibility,” he said. “So, I’ve been trying to use less and less paper to give them an example. Computers are the way of the future, and I want them to be ready. So, about three months ago, I started keeping all my information stored on disk rather than on paper. I save everything to my hard drive, then back up the information on two separate disks.”

“May we have a copy?” I asked.

“You could,” Carlson said. “But it won’t do you any good. That’s what I was trying to tell you. The files are corrupted. All of them, all the research—lost before I could show any of it to Shane.”

Ray and I exchanged a look. “Was there anything special that you remember about Mr. Shane’s house?” Ray asked.

Carlson frowned. “Not really. I mean, Chicago is old. Dark. Any building old enough is going to have something violent in it’s past, and Shane’s is no different. Greystone, built in the 1910s. Original owners were his great-grandparents. Both died in-house, which isn’t uncommon. No reports of anything extra-ordinary; no murder, no suicide. Nothing that would normally result in a haunted house.”

“But something must have,” Ray said. “Or there wouldn’t be that push to investigate.”

The coffee pot clicked off and Carlson turned to grab a mug. “Maybe, maybe not. It’s possible that whatever it was went unreported—probable, even. All the theory says that you don’t need violent death, just violent emotion. You’re both police officers. If there was a domestic issue...” Carlson shrugged. “Of course, that all presupposes the existence of ghosts, which I, as a rule, do not.”

“As if _that_ has anything to do with you,” My father grumbled.

Ray and I exchanged a look. I cleared my throat. “Excuse me for saying, Mr. Carlson, but it seems a bit odd that someone who works so closely with the paranormal would be so skeptical of it’s presence.”

“Not at all,” Carlson said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He looked up. “Would either of you like a cup?” he asked.

“Please, thank you,” Ray said, while I politely declined. If I started now, I’d have to keep drinking it later.

“You were saying,” I prompted.

Carlson handed Ray the sugar, and said, “It makes perfect sense for there to be a skeptic involved. It helps keep everyone honest. An entire cast of believers is too prone to getting swept up in their own beliefs, and the investigation runs wild. Most of the evidence found wouldn’t hold up in court,” Carlson added with a wry grin. “Somebody needs to make sure due process is taken.”

“I see your point,” I said, and returned his smile with one of my own. Ray drank his coffee gratefully, and my teeth ached in sympathy with the amount of sugar I know Ray added to his.

“Just to be clear,” Ray said. “There’s nothing left of your research into Mr. Shane’s home?”

“Well,” Carlson thought for a minute, frowning. “I might still have…let me check,” he said, and went upstairs with his coffee cup.

“What are you thinking, Ray?” I asked quietly, ignoring the way my father hovered by the refrigerator, looking at the child drawings on their surface. I remembered, suddenly, the picture I had found in his trunk, the one I had drawn myself as a child that was now nothing more than ash.

Ray sipped his coffee. “I think that it’s very convenient that all his research disappeared,” he said. “But what it means…” he trailed off.

The girls’ laughter was loud in the sudden silence of the kitchen, Dief’s yips and soft barks a steady companion. Ray’s face was impassive, an oddity as it was usually so very expressive, and I wondered, with a sudden aching, if Ray was having second thoughts about children.

“Ray,” I started, but before I could continue, Carlson came back into the room, a large accordion folder in his hand.

“It’s all the raw material,” he said. “I wish you luck with it.”

“Thank you, kindly,” I said, and took the folder tucking it under my arm.

“Good,” my father said, coming to stand at my shoulder. “Better to look at it with fresh eyes, a Mountie’s eyes. Don’t want to get distracted by some yank’s erroneous conclusions.”

I grit my teeth against a response as Ray thanked Carlson for his time and I called for Dief. He whined, and I called again. This time, he slunk into the kitchen, a tiara perched half-heartedly on his head and a blue cape wrapped around his neck.

“Lookin’ good, Dief,” Ray said.

“He’s Princess Superdog!” Kaitlin chirped, and I had to bite back a laugh; it would do nothing but inspire Dief into a strop, and the last thing we needed was a sulking wolf.

“He sure is,” Ray agreed. “But it’s time for Superdog to don his secret identity and go fight crime with us, okay?”

Kaitlin pouted, but Anna agreed with sudden solemnity. My father made an approving noise over my shoulder, and I rolled my eyes. Kaitlin took the tiara as Anna unhooked the cape. Dief wuffed his thanks, and headed for the door with great dignity.

“Thank you again for your time,” I said, as Carlson ushered us to the door.

“I just wish I could be more help,” he said. Ray handed him his card.

“If you think of anything.”

Carlson took the card with a nod. “I’ll call.”

In the car, Ray started the engine, and looked past me to the closed door of the house. “He’s not going to call,” he said.

“You don’t know that, Ray,” I said, but in truth, I agreed. Carlson didn’t seem to have anything to do with this; he had, in fact, seemed deliberately distant from the whole affair. It was a job, something to feed his family. Statistically, family breadwinners were unlikely to risk their family’s security on something so risky as a faked haunting, especially if such a person was able to support his family.

Ray shot me a look, the kind that spoke so eloquently. This one said _I know you think that’s bullshit, but I’m not going to call you on it._ It was kind of him.

“Whatever you say, Frase,” he said. “Let’s go meet the next contestants, yeah?”

“Right you are, Ray.”


	7. Ray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Semester is ending, and things are crazy. I hope to have the next chapter up tonight as well to make up for missing a week. *fingers crossed*

We headed over to the EEM’s main offices; the group was run out of an old movie theater-turned-church, keeping in line with it’s claims to be an actual religious organization. It wasn’t. It was a hate group, a hate- _cult_ , and had no actual affiliation with any religious denomination, evangelical or no. Fuckers made my skin crawl.

Fraser retreated further into his innocent Mountie routine as we approached the door, Dief tight at his heels.

I’m not going to lie. I really didn’t want to go inside. The place felt…filthy. Slimy. Evil. Not the pure evil of Shane’s house, but a more human kind. The pirogues felt like lead in my stomach, and I forced myself to knock.

The mission was run by a single man, Zachary Dunn, and the highest positions were filled mostly with his family members, and those that weren’t related to him were what-do-ya-call-ems--sycophants. Mrs. Dunn opened the door, and when she spoke, I realized she had been the “secretary” on the phone. 

“How can we help you Gentlemen?” She asked.

I flashed my badge. Dief ran past her, looking around and sniffing everything. I used Mrs. Dunn’s distraction to slip through the door. Fraser followed close on my heels. “Detective Vecchio,” I said. “Chicago P.D. I’d like to talk to you and your husband about Mr. Tyler Shane.”

Mrs. Dunn, turned around to keep an eye on Dief, froze for half a second. “I’m afraid that dog isn’t allowed—”

“Oh, he’s not a dog,” Fraser said. “He’s a wolf. My wolf, in fact, and is, as such, deputized as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”

“What?” She said, finally turning to look at him. Turns out she was human after all, because she got one good look at him and stared, like Dief outside a bakery window.

“He’s a service dog,” Fraser said, letting just a little bit of nasty through. Mrs. Dunn cleared her throat, raising a hand to the large bow at the neck of her blouse. Jesus, did these uber-church types have a uniform?.

“Well,” she said, backpedaling so hard she was spinning her wheels. “In that case. Please, follow me.”

Mrs. Dunn led the way through what used to be the lobby to the old manager’s office. She knocked twice, then pushed the door open and ushered us inside.

Mr. Dunn was an older man, balding and going to seed. He was sweating when he saw us, but that might had just been the temperature of the office. I resisted the urge to tug at my collar.

“The police are here to talk to us about Tyler Shane,” Mrs. Dunn said quietly.

“I have nothing to say about that sinner,” Mr. Dunn said, and looked up at us. I looked back, frowning. Mr. Dunn seemed to realize he maybe should have phrased that differently, but also like he wasn’t about to back down and fix it. _Fuck_ you, you sanctimonious--. “I’m sorry you gentlemen came all the way out here for nothing.”

Fraser raised an eyebrow. “So then you deny sending threatening letters, or harassing and invading his home?”

“What?!” Mr. Dunn snapped, chin wobbling. “Of course not! Cowardly methods, such as those, are the Devil’s trap! We fight the good fight in the open, where everyone can see. It is though exposing the rot that the wounds in our society can be cleansed and healed. Living a pure life in the sight of everyone is the true road to piousness.”

“Right,” I said. I had a feeling that we weren’t going to get anything from these people, and I was right. Twenty minutes later, Fraser, Dief, and I emerged from the theater-church, having done nothing but talk in circles.

“I need a shower,” I groused, settling in behind the wheel. Fraser hummed, which meant he agreed with me, but didn’t want to say. “I don’t think they have the brainpower to stage something like this, let alone pull it off.”

“It certainly seems that way, Ray,” Fraser said. “Still, we must keep an eye on them; it would not be the first time a criminal has successfully played ‘too dumb to have committed the crime.’”

“True,” I said. “Then let’s head back to the precinct. We still have to look at that video.” 

***

Fraser called in to the station on our way, and had Frannie set up a TV and VCR in Interview 2 so it was waiting for us when we got there. Of course, we _also_ had the peanut gallery of Frannie, Huey, and Dewey waiting for us. 

“We heard there was going to be a show,” Dewey said. “We didn’t want to miss it.” 

“You wanted to gawk, is more like it,” I grumbled. “This isn’t a joke.” 

“It’s a Haunted House, Ray,” Huey said. “It sounds like a joke.” 

Fraser cleared his throat. Good. Let him talk for a while. I picked the tape up and pulled it from it’s cardboard case. It looked like any of a hundred tapes that I’d seen. “As a matter of fact, it is only in Western Cultures that the presence of spirits, or hauntings, are considered an amusing fiction--no doubt due to the work of Harry Houdini in the early 1920s, when he focused his energy and celebrity on debunking parlor psychics. Many would use sleight of hand and magician’s tricks to create the illusion of a spiritual presence. These charlatans often exploited the recently bereaved, asking great sums of money--”

“”Oh oh! like at the boardwalk! Those fast talkers playing three-card monty.” Frannie said. “You think that this Shane guy is a conman?” Frannie asked. 

“I think that would be the easiest explanation,” Fraser said. “But I’m not certain that it is the correct one.” 

_No shit, Sherlock,_ I thought, and pushed the tape into the VCR. The TV, which had been showing a blue standby screen, turned black and grey with static before resolving into Shane’s living room. The furniture had been pushed back, and the kitchen table had been moved into the room. A tape recorder with a large microphone sat on the table next to a notepad and pen, and there were five thick pillar candles, one in front of each seat. Shane sat at the table, and Jenna sat across from him. The camera shook, and from off screen they heard Mitch swear softly. 

“You got the camera ready yet?” Jenna asked, turning her head and tossing her hair over her shoulder. She was leaning forward towards Shane; it was pretty obvious that they were still together here. Shane pulled a lighter from his pocket and began to light the candles. 

“Don’t start without us,” called a voice, and a minute later a young woman with long dark hair and large eyes walked in from the kitchen carrying a kitchen thermometer. A moment later, a young man, clearly her brother or a cousin, followed.

“The Balduccis?” I murmured. Fraser nodded. Behind me, Dewey crunched his popcorn. 

“Wait a minute,” Frannie said, leaning forward and adjusting her glasses. “I know her. That’s Andrea and her brother Timmy. They lived down the block from us growing up. Timmy was in my classes at Saint Mary’s.” She frowned. “He used to fake stomach aches to get out of dodgeball.” 

I snorted. “Smart kid.” 

“Are you kidding me?” Dewey said. “Dodgeball was the best!”

“Only when they’re not aiming for you,” Huey said, darkly. 

Fraser cleared his throat with a little hum, his version of a “shhh!” “Sorry, Frase,” I said softly,” and turned back to the video. 

All five ‘investigators’ were now sitting around the table, Mitch mostly with his back to the camera. Someone had turned off the lights, and the group was lit from below by flickering firelight. Next to me, Fraser went stiff. 

“Everybody ready?” Shane asked. “Good.” He cleared his throat. “We are here today to attempt to make contact with the spirits of this house. We wish you no harm; we only wish to confirm your presence here. We are going to start with a few questions. I have before me a tape recorder; please, speak into this microphone. We may not hear you now, but hopefully your words will be recorded here.” 

Shane looked around, and nodded. “Is there anybody here?” He asked. Then, Jenna, 

“How long have you been here?”

Andrea. “Why are you here?”

Timmy. “What is your name?”

Mitch stayed silent. Ray squinted, wishing for his glasses. It looked like he was fiddling with something. A polaroid camera? Yes--Mith brought it to his face and snapped a picture. The flash lit the room too fast for Ray to see anything, but he was sure the room wasn’t as it had been before. 

Behind him, Dewey’s crunching stopped as he choked. “Did you fucking see that?” 

“Impossible,” Huey whispered, and grabbed the remote, pausing the tape and rewinding it frame by frame. 

“Did you see it?” I asked Fraser. He shook his head, face pale and lips pressed white. His eyes tightened and he ducked his head. 

“There!” Frannie said. “Stop, stop!” 

Huey stopped the rewind and they all crowded in closer to see. There, in the corner of the room by the stairs, was the silhouette of a man--but it was wrong. Stretched to inhuman proportions. 

“Fuck me,” Dewey whispered. 

“That’s not--is it?” Frannie asked. She shuddered, backing away. She hit Fraser’s chest, and turned towards him. For once, he didn’t shy away, and wrapped his arms around her, letting her hide her face in his surge. 

“Play the tape,” Fraser said, quietly. “We need to see what happens next.” 

“If you can hear me,” Shane said. “We have before us a thermometer. It currently reads 72 degrees. We know ghosts can change the temperature of the room by drawing energy from it’s surroundings. If you can, please change the temperature around the thermometer. 

Andrea stared closely at the thermometer. Things were quiet for a long moment, then she sat up straight. “It’s moving!” She said in a hushed cry. “70. 68. 65...” she trailed off and within moments, her breath was visible in the candle light. 

“Tyler,” she said, uneasy. Suddenly, she looked all of nineteen. “Tyler I don’t like this.” 

“Let’s play the tape,” Timmy said, but even he seemed wary. Shane hit the stop button and rewound. Then, he pressed “play.” 

Shane’s voice came through. _“Is there anybody here?”_ Static, then very soft: _”yes”_

On the tape, the friends gasped. “Did you hear that?” Jenna hissed. Andrea shushed her, but there was nothing else until Timmy’s question: 

_“What is your name?”_

The static crackled and broke, and I stopped breathing when I realized that it was _laughter_. Then, it fucking talked. 

_”I...am...Legion._

Mitch took another photo and the shadow was standing just behind Shane. Shane’s head shot up and the video went black. Fraser and I jumped to our feet, but a second later the picture was back. Shane disappeared into the kitchen, and the others were calling after him. The recorder was in pieces on the floor and the tape was snapped and strewn across the table. Someone had turned the lights back on, and the candles streamed smoke towards the ceiling. 

Mitch stood and turned towards the camera. A moment later the tape ended.

“That,” Huey said slowly. “Was no ghost.” 

“No,” Fraser said softly. “In the bible, ‘Legion’ is the name given to a multitude of demons who act as a single entity. ‘And He (Jesus) asked him (the man), "What is thy name?" And he answered, saying, "My name is Legion: for we are many."’ The Gospel of Mark, 5:9.” 

“Ohhh! Oh no!” Frannie said, and bustled towards the door, crossing herself. “Ghosts are one thing, but I didn’t sign on for demons!” 

“I have to agree with Francesca,” Huey said. Dewey nodded. 

“Good luck,” he said, and the duck boys beat feet. 

I sighed. “You ever get the feeling that you are royally fucked?”

Fraser snorted. “More and more frequently, Ray.” 

***

The next move was obvious. We had to talk to the Balducci’s. 

Andrea and Timothy lived in their childhood home in Ray Vecchio’s old neighborhood, and David Thompson rented a basement apartment from them. We pulled up to their house the next morning: according to Jenna, they worked mostly later hours, so we should catch all three of them at home. 

Andrea opened the door, eyes widening when I flashed my badge, then even further when she saw Fraser. Every. Damned. Time. If my eyes weren’t just as wide, I’d have a damned complex by now.

“Chicago PD,” I said, mostly to get her attention back on my badge. “We’d like to talk to you about your boss, Mr. Tyler Shane.”

Andrea folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the doorframe, snapping her gum. “I wasn’t aware the police investigated hauntings. I thought that was more our jurisdiction.”

“Threats have been made against Mr. Shane’s life,” Fraser said. “That makes it our—well, Ray’s—jurisdiction.”

“But not yours?” she asked, eyeing Fraser. “What are you, anyway?”

Fraser cleared his throat. “My name is Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father, and for reasons that don’t need exploring at the juncture, I’ve remained, attached as liaison with the consulate.”

“Killers of your father, huh?” Andrea said, deviating from the usual “what’s a Mountie doing in Chicago?” script. “You know, most murdured spirits end up as ghosts; they have no time to make peace with their lives and thus remain here in limbo. Was it violent?”

“Very,” Fraser said flatly, and Andrea stepped back, flushing red.

“We’re here to talk about Mr. Shane,” I said, louder than necessary, and she flinched. Good. Show some damned respect.

“Come on in,” She said, and let us into the house. “Timmy!” She hollered up the stairs as Fraser closed the door behind him.

Timmy yelled back down, “What?!”

“The police are here!” Andrea yelled. “Put some goddamned pants on!”

Timmy yelled something back, probably along the line of “go fuck yourself,” considering the shade of red Fraser’s ears turned, but it was too far away for me to hear. Andrea knocked on the door under the stairs, and after a moment, it opened to reveal a young black man with large headphones around his neck. His eyes were bloodshot, and he had a pair of glasses pushed up onto the top of his head. He smiled at Andrea, though, and the smile she sent back was smitten.

“The cops are here,” she said. “They want to talk to us about Tyler.”

David, it had to be, looked at us and blinked, before nodding. “Sure,” he said. “Let me just…” he trailed off, and ducked back inside. He came back, sans headphone and glasses, just as Timmy came down the stairs.

“We can talk in the living room,” Timmy said, and led the way. Andrea made a face at his back, but David just rolled his eyes, and we followed.

The living room looked just like The Vecchio’s as well, warm and lived-in cluttered with a healthy scattering of religious things; a crucifix on the wall next to a painting of a praying Jesus, a small statue of the Virgin Mary, a placard with St. Francis. Timmy sprawled in the easy chair, while Dave and Andrea sat on opposite ends of the couch. Andrea patted the cushion next to her, raising her eyebrows at Fraser, but he pretended not to notice, and remained standing. I, however, took the loveseat because you do not pass up on furniture that overstuffed, you just don’t.

“Well, Detective…?”

“Vecchio,” I said. “And this is Constable Fraser.” Fraser tipped his hat in greeting. Dave smiled and gave a small wave, but Timmy just nodded with a distracted, “yeah, howyadoin.”

“I wasn’t aware the situation warranted a visit from the actual police,” Timmy said.

“That’s what I said,” Andrea began.

“Shut up,” Tommy said, cutting her off. I resisted the urge to square my shoulders, even though I felt Fraser stiffen up next to me. Timmy was really battin’ a thousand here.

“You are aware, are you not, that Mr. Shane has received several threats to his personal safety?” Fraser said. Not good; that level of formal spelled nothing but t.r.o.u.b.l.e.

“Yeah, from those religious kooks,” Timmy sneered. “Ain’t the same thing.”

“Tyler is _haunted_ ” Andrea insisted. “Regular policing can’t help him; in fact, it might serve to aggravate the forces in his home.”

Now it was Timmy’s turn to roll his eyes. Interesting. Timmy was in the video; looks like he was in some denial. I looked over at Fraser to see if he’d caught the same thing, but Fraser was still in full Wooden soldier mode, and wasn’t in a position to notice much of anything.

“And you all believe this?” Fraser asked, and I bit back a grin. Silly me; even pissed as all hell, there wasn’t much Fraser missed.

Andrea nodded emphatically, and David less so, but still sure. Timmy agreed after a moment, like the confession was pulled out of him. So, not that he didn’t believe, but that he didn’t want to believe.

Had Timmy gone upstairs? Had he seen what we’d seen, felt what we’d felt?

“You feel there was no way for the Eastside Evangelical Mission to do this?” I asked, just to be sure. Surprisingly, it was David who spoke up.

“No way,” He said. “Look, just because we hadn’t done the special yet, doesn’t mean we’ve never investigated. I’ve hours of footage on that house, shit I go through in my spare time. It’s what I was doing just now. That house? Has it all, and there is no logical explanation.” 

I resisted the urge to snort. Demon infestation seems to be a pretty logical explanation. “Yeah,” I said. “We saw.” 

“Would you be willing to testify to that?” Fraser asked David.

David blinked at him. “Would I need to?”

Fraser smiled at him; “Probably not, no, but the question stands.”

“Then yes, I would,” David said. “I’ve been running the tech side of this for a while, and you learn, after a while, what’s explainable and what isn’t; I’ve seen things—readings, images, you name it—from that house that just don’t make logical sense, unless you believe the place is infested with spiritual energy.”

My mind twigged on that word. “Infested?”

David shrugged. “Like fleas, man. All sorts of entities, eating off the energy of that house; nothing good is attracted there.” I exchanged a look with Fraser; that confirmed what we knew, all right. I looked over at the Balduccis. Timmy and Andrea were both pale, neither looking at us. Shit.

“Would you be willing to investigate the house, if Detective Vecchio and I convince Mr. Shane to try?” Fraser asked. Even I looked at him in shock. What the fuck, Frase?

Fraser noticed my look and leaned in closer. “It’s obvious something is going on here, Ray. Either we investigate and nothing happens and we look closer at the EEM, or we do and we discover just what it is we’re up against. Either way, we owe it to Mr. Shane to do everything in our power to help him.”

“We do?” I protested, but I knew he was right. Fraser knew that I knew, too, and nodded.

“Indeed, Ray.”

I sighed, nodded, and turned back to the others. “Would you?”

“Yes,” Andrea said, in a heartbeat. David nodded only after a moment’s hesitation. Timmy stared at the carpet for a long moment, before he, too, nodded, not looking up.


	8. Fraser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boom! Two in one night!

Ray has a particular stalk that he does when his blood is up; it’s a dangerous walk, natural, and not at all like the walk he affects when he’s trying to project danger. It is, in fact, what that walk is trying to be. I love and hate that walk, because it means Ray is angry beyond angry, and seething with futility and the need to fight, the need for release. I love it, for I would be the trigger for that release. He walks that way and I want to stop him, press against him full body, force him still until he had to use that energy against me, on me, to me. I want to be the focus of that intensity, that passion.

Stop it, Benton. Ray has been through much, too much to be the focus of your ill-advised lust. 

I find myself dropping back when Ray stalks around the station, a half-step behind. I know how it looks to the others; like Ray is running ahead, dragging me behind, when in fact it is I propping him up from behind. From the rear I can defend his back, and he reacts to that, aggression gaining confidence. (That I can also see the way he moves has nearly nothing to do with it).

I kept pace with him, today. He wouldn’t appreciate the feel of eyes on the back of his neck. He would want me there, in step; he needs me. (And I, addict to that emotion, would give him anything.)

He grunted at Frannie when she called out a tentative greeting, still unsettled from earlier, and Dief broke off to follow her. Good. Give her comfort. 

Ray collapsed into his desk chair, long legs stretched out and head thrown back. His hands lay where they fell in his lap, and I could just see the ridges in his palms from his nails when he clenched his fists. Minutes passed, but Ray looked unwilling to move.

“Ray,” I asked gently, and Ray seemed to snap out of a revere. He sat up, pulling his feet in, and dragged the Shane file closer.

“Let me just get the paperwork started, Frase,” Ray said. He sounded exhausted, the strain of the past few days finally catching up to him. “Then we can go home.”

“Very good, Ray,” I said. I hesitated, feeling my own weariness just barely kept at bay. “Would you like me to type?” I clocked in at nearly five times his speed, with nearly double the accuracy.

Ray spun the typewriter around with a relieved sigh. “Yes, God. Thought you’d never offer. Thank you.”

I smiled at him, and with a single crack of my knuckles, began to type. Ray chimed in from time to time, remembering details and spitting them out, and I integrated them into the body of the preliminary report. Minutes later, Ray had his report in hand and he stood. “I’m just gonna give this to Welsh,” he said, and disappeared into Welsh’s office. I stood slowly, feeling the day in my leg, my lower back. Dief appeared, licking powdered sugar from his chops and I couldn’t even find the energy to scold him. I did, however, look at him disapprovingly, not that he noticed. Ingrate.

Ray burst from Welsh’s office a few moments later, “Move,” Ray said. I frowned, but followed him. Something must have upset him in Walsh’s office; there was something cold about Ray now. I didn’t push. He would tell me, in time, and I held onto that thought for the entirety of the tense car ride.

Ray dropped me off at the consulate, and I gratefully changed out of my uniform, indulging myself with a hot shower to chase away the lingering cold that had settled in my bones. Dressed comfortably warm, I looked at Diefenbaker.

Dief was sitting in the doorway, head on his paws. When he saw me looking, he whined.

“What?” I asked him. “You hate showers.”

He just whined again, looking towards the door. Ray. We were supposed to be with Ray, now; Wednesday night was a standing invitation to Ray’s house. Instead, he had dropped me here.

Something, a worry niggling in the back of my brain, grew more vehement. “There’s nothing wrong with Ray,” I said aloud, and it rang false even in my own ears. “Nevertheless,” I said, “It’s time for your walk.” Dief raised an eyebrow at me. “A long walk,” I said. “That takes up past Ray’s building.”

Dief was on his feet in seconds, and stopping only for a moment to get Dief attached to a leash (animal control had been cracking down these past months) and to lock the door, we were off at a brisk pace. If we jogged part of the way, well, we could both use the exercise.

Arriving at Ray’s building, we entered as a young woman I recognized as a tenant on the third floor left, and Dief bounded up the stairs before me. In a shake we were in front of Ray’s door, and the low unease that had urged me over here surge forward. The door was ajar and the lights were off.

I signaled to Dief to be ready, and gestured for him to proceed with caution as I slowly opened the door. 

“Ray,” I called. “It’s Fraser. Your door is open. Are you alright?”

There was no answer, and Dief slunk along as close to the floor as he could. Once across the threshold, he started to growl, low and quiet.

“Ray?”

He wasn’t in the living room, nor was he in the kitchen. The Bathroom door was open and the room empty, which left only his bedroom. I hesitated; entering his bedroom was felt surprisingly intimate considering some of the spaces we had shared, and it took me a moment to knock on the door. Still no answer, and I pushed the door open as gently as I could.

Ray lay on the bed, curled up with his knees to his chin and facing away from the door. I could see him tremble and shiver, and I was across the room from the door faster than I could think. “Ray!” I called out. His skin was pale and tinged with blue, his eyes were rolled back in his head, and he was caught in the grips of some nightmare. He was cold to the touch; he needed to be warmed.

Carefully, I hooked my arms under his knees and shoulders and lifted, feeling the strain in my back. Ray was heavier than he looked, his form mostly lean muscle, but I was able to carry him the few feet to the bathroom. I turned on the light with my shoulder, and balanced him on the toilet as I started the water running.

Hypothermia meant a bath of lukewarm water. This only looked like hypothermia, so while I made sure the water never got too warm, I left it running as I stripped off my shirt, picked Ray back up, and brought us both into the stream.

The water bounced off the top of my head, running down my face. It flattened his hair, and stuck in his eyelashes. He didn’t respond, and I shook him gently. “Ray,” I called, and put his feet on the ground, bracing him against my body so I could cup his face with my other hand. “Ray, can you hear me?” I patted his cheek. “Ray?!”

He blinked, eyes fluttering open. “Fraser?” he said. “Issat you?”

I sighed, relieved. “Yes, Ray. It’s me.”

“I took you home,” he said, his voice still week. “It—“ he bit off his words, and shook his head. “You came back.”

“Always,” I said, and held him tighter as the shivers intensified.

“The fuck?” He asked through chattering teeth.

“Your body temperature had dropped to dangerous levels,” I said. “The shivering is good; it means your body is trying to warm itself.”

“Rah.”

As the shaking subsided, and Ray seemed to come back to life under my hands, I asked. “Ray…what happened?”

Ray bit his lip, then laughed, bitterly. “Guess there’s no denying it now, is there.” He said. He shook his head. “Let’s get some food, huh? I’m starvin’. I promise, I’ll tell you everything after.”

“Okay, Ray.”

Ray looked up, his gaze straying south of my face, locked on my naked chest, and I could feel myself flushing despite the tepid chill of the water, felt old desire long since banked flare brightly. God, how I wanted him.

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. Now was not the time nor the place. Ray had just—whatever that was; he would not appreciate your advances now. When I opened my eyes, Ray was looking at me, waiting to meet my look, and I don’t know what I could read in his eyes, but it triggered some flight instinct, and I said.

“We should get dry, then.”

Ray quirked his lips, and whatever look was in his eye—well, it didn’t go away so much as recede. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

I held his gaze for a moment longer and it clicked, suddenly, what that look had been. It was a _promise_. Not now, but _soon_.

Ray turned off the water, stepped out of the shower, and offered me a towel.

“Food first,” Ray said. I, trapped oh so willingly, followed.

***

We ordered from the Thai place down the street. Pad see yew and beef satay, spicy coconut soup and sticky rice. Ray ordered more than we should have been able to eat, and yet, when I first set chopsticks to noodles, found I was more hungry that I had anticipated. I ate as I hadn’t since my last northern winter, consuming calories to keep myself warm and mobile on the tundra. Ray, with no patience for chopsticks, was slurping pad see yew with a fork. Even Dief ate with gusto.

Ray and I both needed to talk about what we had experienced in that house. We needed to be on even footing, and there were too many secrets between us. Already, I could feel them clouding the connection Ray and I shared. I should _know--_

Ray dropped his half-empty carton of pad see yew onto the table, fork sticking up like some lonely flag pole, and sat forward, rubbing his hands through his hair. He braced his elbows on his knees and hung his head forward. I could see his one hand jumping, a tell he only showed with me alone when he was apprehensive about talking. I was overcome by a wave of cold anticipation.

“Ray,” I said quietly, not pushing, but present when he was ready. I felt like I was driving a dogsled blind, heart pumping, rushing in my ears, and no way of knowing where I would end up.

“So, I see things no one else sees,” Ray said to the floor. “Not the way you do, picking up on details people look over, but things that are invisible most of the time to most of the people. I was a kid—“ He broke off, swallowing hard, and I could just imagine. Ray had already painted a picture of himself as an odd duck, teased for his hair, his glasses, his family; seeing things would just isolate him further. Ray didn’t have Innuqsuq as I did, to see and nurture my spiritual side. Ray would have known he couldn’t tell his parents, wouldn’t have told anybody, and suffered for years on his own. “That part doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is: most people have one shadow, you know? But sometimes, the shadows they have don’t look like them. Sometimes they’re all twisted, like they were left out in the sun or something. Burned. Twisted. Their shadows are reaching, grasping things.

“Sometimes, I see those shadows, and there is no person to cast it; Ghosts, you know? I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. I see ghosts. And sometimes, it fucks with my head.”

I remained quiet, not wanting to interrupt, to stop this flow of words, but he looked up at me, wry and slightly lost.

“I know you’re not going to think I’m crazy, because you’re _you_ , but some confirmation on that front would be nice.”

Chastised, I winced. I tried to think of the best way to assure him. What came out was “Since I have come to Chicago, I have been haunted by the ghost of my dead father.”

Ray raised an eyebrow, “The one you came to Chicago to find justice for?”

“The same,” I said. I paused for a moment. “He has an office in my closet.”

“He would,” Ray said, dry, I looked up at him sharply. He shrugged. I nodded. He did understand.

“It’s very annoying, Ray, and slightly disturbing. He was building it around the time of my annual psychological evaluation. I was trying to convince Ottowa that I am of sound mind, and all I can hear are chainsaws in my closet.”

Ray shook his head. “Dads, right?”

I smiled. “Indeed.” I looked over my shoulder; speaking of my father had a tendency to summon him when I didn’t want him there, but the apartment was empty. “It’s very Shakespearian, though no one is trying to marry my mother for money and power, so the analogy is a bit thin.” Ray smiled with half of his mouth, then turned back to the table to contemplate his left-overs. “You seem to be taking this well.”

Ray shrugged. “I’m kinda numb” He raised an eyebrow. “You need to talk too, you know.”

“I already suspected,” I confessed. “You’re reactions over the past day, from being assigned to this case to our encounter with the entity this afternoon, are in line with someone who fervently wishes they don’t have personal experience with the subject matter.” I rubbed my eyebrow with my thumb. “And you may have mentioned something along these lines when I had you under hypnosis for the Inuksuk case.”

Ray closed his eyes. “You went poking?”

“You volunteered the information freely, Ray. I was asking about that day.” I sighed. “You said you noticed the fight because the shadows had gone sharp, and I asked you what you meant. You said the shadows only you could see were angry, then wouldn’t say anything more.”

I sat back. “I’m sorry if you feel offended, Ray,” I said. “I would never tell anybody else, you didn’t seem to want to discuss it, and neither did an opportunity to raise the subject myself arise. I had no idea _how_ to tell you.”

“But you had time for the cauliflower bit.”

“That happened before hand, and I have since apologized for that several times.”

Ray grinned; it was a faint version of his usual grin, but it was genuine. “Yeah, I’m just messing with you.” As if I had passed some sort of test, Ray grabbed his pad see yew and sat back, swirling a large portion onto his fork and stuffing it into his mouth before saying, “so this afternoon, huh?”

“Manners, Ray,” I said, mostly by instinct, and continued when Ray waved his hand in apology. “Indeed.” I licked my lips. “I confess, my exposure to the paranormal is limited to my father and the occasional spirit walk.” I sighed. “I just have no idea how to comprehend his afternoon, Ray.”

“Man’s got evil in his house,” Ray said. 

I blinked. “How do you know, Ray?”

He shrugged, and looked away. “The thing had no shadow.”


	9. Ray

Fraser stared at me, fairly boggled. Any other day, any other conversation, I’d be happy to boggle him; it was, in fact, a favorite pastime, but this time…I already felt lower than low for even noticing, let alone having any fun.

“You saw it, Ray?” Fraser asked, voice quiet and tense. Fraser’s own second shadow was back, tense and watching me. I never caught any malevolence from it, but to have its attention was unnerving, especially since I’m pretty sure that was Fraser’s father, and knowing what I do about their relationship pre-and-post mortem, the guy could be a bit of a pain. Now wasn’t the time, however. I shook my head.

“I _didn’t_ see it,” I said. “That’s my point.” I sighed, scrubbed a hand through my hair. In the late 70s, when I was in the full swing of puberty and cocksure attitude, my friend’s grandmother moved in with them. She was from the Old Country, had paid her way to this one by playing up to stereotypes, reading tourists palms for cash. We thought she was the coolest; a little off and she didn’t speak much English, but she smoked and drank and shared the wealth. Still, not all of her readings were cold, and is was she that pulled me aside one night at the height of summer, sat me down at the gauze-covered table she kept in their front room, and told me everything I had to now try to explain to Fraser.

“Look,” I said. “It’s like this. We’re people. We’re alive. There’s something…special about that. We know that even if we don’t understand what it is. When we die, it’s our bodies that disintegrate, not _us_. “

“Conservation of energy,” Fraser murmured. “We are bio-electrical machines. It doesn’t disappear when we die.”

That…sounded about right, actually. “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Think of it that way. What’s important is that, most of the time, that energy passes on. It dissipates or disperses, or travels through and we move on. But sometimes, we get stuck; the energy doesn’t go anywhere and stays, and because of its _thingness_ , it has an extra, like, weight to it that casts a shadow. I see that shadow

I paused. This was the hard part, the part I didn’t like admitting, not even to Fraser, even though he was sitting there, looking like he believe every word I said. “The problem,” I said, feeling the weight of the words in my chest, “is that there are more things than ghosts that most people can’t see—things that even I can’t see because they don’t have that _thingness_ —they never did because they’ve never been human.” I sighed. “It’s exhausting,” I said. “To be ‘on’ all the time. And the letdown’s a bitch--which is what you walked in on.” 

“Ray,” he said, and I could hear it, his desire to not believe me, just as clearly as I could hear that he _did_ believe. He cleared his throat and thumbed his eyebrow, gathering his thoughts. He had his head cocked to the side, like he’d done a hundred times, only _this_ time I recognized it for what it was. He was listening, probably to his father. I thought back over the past year and a half, to the various conversations we’d had that only _just_ made sense, and wondered just how often he’d actually been talking to me.

“I have heard it said before that the Inuit believe little, but fear much,” Fraser said at length, but he was unsure. “The old ways are spiritual ones in the most literal sense; the belief that everything has a spirit, or anirniq, and the existence of ghosts is as commonly accepted as the idea that snow is cold.”

I couldn’t help a little snort of laughter, and Fraser flashed a smile at me, tight-lipped and preoccupied. “You think that’s what I’m seeing, don’t you,” I asked, but it wasn’t really a question. For all that Fraser used that brain of his to hide truth in facts, he usually had a reason for everything he said.

“I’m almost certain of it, Ray. As certain as I am that the entity in Mr. Shane’s house is a Tuurngaq, a spirit that, by it’s nature, is unconnected to the physical realm.”

The odds of an Inuit spirit haunting Tyler Shane were about as good as, well, as a Mountie fighting the good fight in Chicago. Still. “In Chicago, though?”

Fraser sighed. He still wouldn’t look at me; why wouldn’t he look at me? “With growing contact with other cultures, many Inuit have since adopted Christianity as their main source of spirituality. As such, the Tuurngaq, was given a new name.”

Shit. It was probably exactly what I was thinking, wasn’t it. “Just say it,” I said, and closed my eyes to wait.”

“Many take the word to mean demon, Ray.”

Whelp. There it was. Out in the open. Motherfuck.

“It would stand to reason, considering the name given to the entity on the VHS tape. However, to the nature of the message, the possibility of the entity actually being one of the famed four horsemen is slim.”

Message, what—oh. Right. _Come and see._ “So we’re looking at a demon,”

“A rather famous and powerful demon, Ray,”

“...with delusions of apocalyptic-hood. Right. Fuck.” I scrubbed my face with my hands, pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes until the colors bloomed and sparks danced across my vision. I dropped my hands, blinking away the lights until Fraser’s face came into focus. He was pale. Stress lines etched around his eyes, meeting with the faint purpling of what were looking to be some spectacular bags under his eyes. He hadn’t looked this beat up since Warfield had actually beaten him up.

“There’s still some chance it might be the religious nuts,” I said, but I didn’t believe it.

“Possible,” Fraser said, his tone saying: _“No way in hell, Ray, but I see what you’re doing, so thank you.”_ “However, I doubt it Ray. One would assume that the actual apocalypse would be a bit…more noticeable.

“I dunno, Frase,” I drawled, “The world sure looks like it’s going to hell in a handbasket.”

Fraser ducked his head. “In motions passed and carried so far removed…” he said, and trailed off. I wasn’t there, when Fraser first got fucked over by the government he swore to serve, but I read the file and had been there when they did it again in little ways over and over, and more, I read _him_ “Still,” he said, shaking himself. “As policemen, we do see a…darker side of reality than most, Ray.”

I snorted. “A more realistic one, you mean.”

“Now that’s just cynical, Ray,” Fraser said, but I noticed he didn’t deny it. “And I meant more noticeable in a natural disaster sort of way. There is a certain grandiose quality that one tends to associate with the apocalypse.”

“So…just a demon, then?”

“I’m certain that’s more than enough, Ray,” Fraser said, quietly, and really, he had a point. He also had that slump to his shoulders that meant he was about to fall over and didn’t want to admit it.

Fraser had camped out on my couch more than once since we had become partners, and not always on purpose. There had been a few nights, after endless hours of trying to clean up Chicago’s mean streets, that Fraser had drifted off, braced against the arm of the couch. The first time it had happened, the only sign I had that he’d fallen asleep was when he shifted, deep in a dream, and rested his head against my shoulder. We had been watching hockey, and didn’t wake until well after the announcers called the victor. I had sat there, too afraid of waking him and ending this moment to move, until I had to piss or piss myself—and I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime, thank you. When I left the bathroom, Fraser was awake and gathering his things. To date, it was the only night he didn’t stay after falling asleep. When I got to the station the next morning, I had to grab a paper to find the score from the night before, because for the life of me, all I could remember was the feel of Fraser’s hair against my cheek.

The next time he’d fallen asleep, Fraser stayed perfectly upright, as if he had coached his body not to lean into warmth when he slept. I tried not to think too much about what that meant; it was too depressing. But, stick in his ass and all, Fraser had spent the night, and several since, sleeping on my couch.

Now, Fraser seemed to be running out of steam, just as on that first night; it wasn’t a great surprise. In the span of 24 hours, he’d been harassed by a demon, driven all over creation, and found my ass in the aftermath of--well, I don’t really know what to call them. It’s like an adrenalynn drop, but worse, and it happens when I’m forced to see too much. Fraser, for all that he couldn’t see the shadows, had seen enough himself. It was no wonder he was drifting off, the the file Carlson had given us in his lap. God, I wouldn’t want the last thing I read to be that shit; I was used to a certain level of nightmare by this point, but there’s no reason to go poking at it.

I covered the file with my hand before he could open it, and he looked at me, head cocked like Dief’s when someone said, “No, you can’t have a doughnut.”

“In the morning, Frase,” I said, not surprised to hear my voice was wrecked. “Trust me. I doubt you want to sleep with that information in your head.”

After a moment, Fraser nodded and put the file back of the coffee table. “Right you are, Ray.” He made to stand, but I pushed him back down with my hand on his shoulder.

“Stay,” I said. “We’ll tackle this tomorrow.”

He nodded, and swung his legs up. He must be more tired that I thought, because he was out even as his head hit the pillow. I took the blanked off of the back of my sofa and draped it over him. As I turned off the light and headed into my own bedroom, I heard Dief stand and walk over to lay with Fraser. Good.

***

Fraser was up the next morning when I staggered out of my room looking for coffee.

“It’s truly remarkable, Ray, the extent of what can happen behind closed doors,” he said from where he sat on the couch. I grunted at him, and went for my coffee, finding a pot brewed and hot, a package of Smarties opened next to my mug. Fraser needs to spend the night more often, he really does.

I fixed my cup, drank half of it—not hot enough to but, but hot enough to feel good; perfect—and refilled the cup before I joined Fraser in the living room. I sat next to him, sipped more of my coffee, and forced my eyes to focus. Fraser had the file open in his lap. It was clear he had been up for a while, and had read through most, if not all of the file.

“DV is the hardest nut to crack,” I muttered, and Fraser hmmed in agreement. I yawned, cracked my neck, and as the coffee and sugar hit my blood stream, I began to feel more human. “Alright, Frase, give me the highlights.”

“Well, after we spoke to Mr. Carlson, I did some research on my own, and found some interesting discrepancies in the reports. Mr. Shane’s house is _not_ the first to have existed on it’s grounds. It appears the first house on that plot was built in the late 1700s, and was destroyed in the Chicago fire, along with the original inhabitants. The current house was rebuilt in the aftermath, and while the current house has no history of violence, the history of the original is nothing if not turbulent. There have been several deaths in the home, including a teen mother who killed herself and her baby in the bath, a young man stabbed by his wife when he tried to force himself on her in the kitchen, and,” he flipped through to show me a list of obituaries, “ at least five people have died falling down those stairs. Also, Mr. Shane’s father, apparently found the remains of several prohibition era skeletons in the basement while doing renovations, all killed with a bullet to the back of the head--yet another aspect missing from Carlson’s notes.”

Jesus. I put my coffee down. “Fucked up,” I said. Fraser nodded sadly.

“Indeed, Ray. But I think it suffices to say that there is certainly enough darkness here to draw whatever it is to this site.”

“Great,” I muttered. “But it doesn’t tell us why Carlson wasn’t able to find this out.” Fraser hmmed, and I looked at the clock on my oven. It was nearly nine am. “You got the morning off?” I asked, surprised. 

Fraser wagged his head. “Inspector Thatcher has indicated that my time is best spent actively working the investigation.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Indeed. It seems that the nature of Mr. Shane’s relation to local politics was a strong motivating factor.”

I snorted. Yeah. Sounds about right. “Listen,” I said. “Psychic Charlie is giving a talk this afternoon at three. Why don’t we take Dief to the park for a while, let him run off some of the last few days. We’ll get pretzels or something.” Dief barked; he was on board. 

Fraser--Fraser’s ears turned red, and he coughed, but he nodded. “I’d like that Ray.” 

“Greatness!” I said. “It’s a date. Just let me get my pants.” I swallowed most of my coffee in a long pull, and walked back into the bedroom to get dressed. At least _something_ good may come of this whole mess. 

***

After our day in the park, we had to take Deif back to the consulate. He had managed to knock over the ice cream vendor while in persuit of a purse-snatching rollerblader, and ended up looking like a neopolitan himself, with extra fudge. We hosed him off at the 44 local fire station, and the three lady firefighters were just _oh so helpful._

Fraser caught my eye, and played up the dumb mountie routine, talking in circles around them as they cleaned Deif off for him. I had to practically shove the ice cream cone I had bought to try and appease the cart pusher into my mouth to keep from laughing in their faces. The way Fraser's eye lingered was just a bonus. 

So, with my car still smelling faintly of wet wolf, we drove over to the gayborhood, where Charlie-boy was giving his talk. 

Charles Syzmansky, the “consultant-psychic” was also, surprise, surprise, a local celebrity, Having written the book _Living with Ghosts: An Instructional Autobiography for the Paranormal Lifestyle,_ he frequently had talks and signings at _Bell, Book, and Candle Occulist_.

There was _something_ about the place that I noticed right away; there was a charge in the air like before a thunderstorm, but stronger—it reminded me of when I was eight and the fuzebox blew, leaving the house in darkness and the wires sparking in the basement. My hair had puffed out like a dandelion, and I felt the sparks in my chest. I felt it now, pulsing, and I checked my hair in the glass as we walked in, making sure it looked only as wild as it was supposedto. It didn’t; it looked way wilder, but normal wilder not electrocuted wilder.

Fraser opened and held the door for me--he was such a sap, I swear to god. As soon as we stepped in, I could tell why he’d hesitated on the landing. The music was loud, nearly deafening, but that wasn’t the worst of it; the place reeked. Old patchuli and new sage and something that smelled like my grandmother all mixed with the scented candles and oils and old paper and cat—good thing Dief stayed home. It made my eyes water; I could only imagine what it was like for Fraser.

Still, he was dealing well, better than I was, anyway, and he approached the Cure fan that was behind the counter.

“Excuse me,” Fraser began, taking his hat off and holding it in his hands. Jesus Christ, Frase, tone it down. “I’m Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This is Detective Vecchio, with the Chicago Police Department. We’re looking for Charles Syzmanski? We were told he would he here.”

Cure fan didn’t even blink at our titles, but he did roll his eyes when Fraser said Chalie’s name. “Yeah,” he said, and I raised my eyebrows. I didn’t expect a voice that deep out of a kid so damned skinny. “In the back. Follow the sounds of the sycophants.”

“Ah,” Fraser said. “Indeed.” He stood, and put his hat back on his head. “Just so. Thank you, kindly.”

“Yeah, sure,” Cure fan said, and went back to his magazine. Sheesh.

Fraser turned to look at me, and I shrugged my shoulders, but led the way deeper into the shop. Sure enough, once we got past the speakers, we could hear the sounds of a mass of people, shifting seats and muted coughs, and over them, a single, clear voice. Fraser found the door, and led the way in.

The back of the store was large, about twice as large as the front, and had been turned into a small event space. A small stage was at the far end with a single microphone and a podium. The floor was filled with rows of cheap plastic folding chairs, with a center isle down the middle. The seats were filled with more of Cure fan’s type, a bunch of old cat ladies, just as many young girls who looked like they walked out of Woodstock, a few old hippies who probably did walk out of Woodstock, and one old man asleep in the back row who was probably homeless.

The audience was enraptured, and the longer we stood in the back, it was easy to see why. Charlie was an older man, with the kind of face that ages into a rugged sort of handsome, and he spoke with a clear, rich voice. There was emotion behind his words when he read, and I ain’t no Shakespeare, but even I can tell when something is well written. He smiled at the audience, too, and even that was wide with straight, white teeth. It was a beautiful smile; honestly, it was the kind of smile you expect someone like Fraser to have, since he was so perfect and all. But Fraser didn’t have a perfect smile; it was brilliant, but it showed teeth that were crooked, and almost fang-like in places, and it was so goddamned amazing—

I shook my head, and looked back up, ignoring the questioning look he sent me. We had good timing, because Charlie picked that moment to wrap up his speech.

“Thank you all for listening,” he said. “There will be a ten-minute intermission, then I will be signing books out in the store proper. Thank you, again.” He waived his hand, and walked off stage. I met Fraser’s eye, and nodded my head, and we fought our way through the stirring mob.

We weren’t the first to get to him, but a judicious application of my badge meant that, as soon as the flower-power reject in front of us left, we were next in line.

“And how can I help Chicago’s best and brightest today,” he asked, not looking up from where he was packing things into his bag. “This is about Mr. Shane, is it not?”

Okay, there was no way he pulled that from nowhere.

“Indeed it is,” Fraser said. “But to clarify a point, I am not a member of the Chicago Police. I am—”

“A Mountie, yes,” he looked up then, and looked between us with a smile. “And no, I didn’t ‘read’ that. A Mountie uniform is quite distinctive, and I saw your badge, Detective.”

Fraser raised an eyebrow. “You’re not afraid that admitting as such isn’t undermining your credibility as a psychic?”

“Of course not,” Charlie said, and zipped his bag. “To claim psychic ability based on observable fact is that fastest way to get yourself labeled as a charlatan. If I were to claim, however,” and now he looked at Fraser, no, over Fraser’s left shoulder, “that your father’s actions are never needless, even if he, himself doesn’t know the need, that would be something to base it on.”

“Hold up,” I said, because if Charlie was saying what I think he was saying, that meant he might see the shadows, too.

“Yes, Detective,” he said, and looked at me, and into me, and I _knew,_ he was answering my question. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

Charlie sighed. “As for why you’re here,” he said. “There is something evil in that house. I cannot advise poking a sleeping bear, but I’m afraid the bear is waking on his own. We need more than an investigation; that house needs an exorcism, but I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that the only way to get one, is to get this farce of an investigation under way. Please tell Jenna when you see her that I am more than willing to help in any way I can. I like Tyler, and nobody deserved to live with that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go set up.” Charlie nodded at us, picked up his bag, and walked away.

I looked at Fraser. Fraser looked at me, opened his mouth. I held up my hand. Fraser closed his mouth, licked his bottom lip.

“Well,” I said, flatly. “What the hell are we gonna tell Welsh?”

***

Welsh put the file down, reached into his drawer, and pulled out a roll of antacids. I winced; the antacids were never a good sign.

“So—and pardon me if it takes a moment for me to wrap my head around this—the latest in the impossible string of cases that seem to creep out of the woodwork when you two are around—You have decided, based on this truly incredible—nay, unbelievable—evidence, that the commissioner’s nephew is being haunted, and that the best course of action is to—and this is the part that I really, really love—it to televise an exorcism?”

“Well, when you put it like that sir,” I said, and Fraser tilted his head.

“For clarity’s sake, Lieutenant, it would be to record the show, not televise—it wouldn’t be a live broadcast.” Fraser had that set I his jaw that meant he’d already made up his mind to do this, and it was just a matter of convincing everyone around him of his plan. He was so _damned_ stubborn, sometimes.

Walsh, thankfully, just nodded. “Uh huh. And can you, Constable, in the wake of this…truly stupendous report, give me one good reason to authorize this madness?”

“It’s a win-win, sir,” I said, jumping in before Fraser could explain; sometimes Fraser’s brand of verbosity worked to steamroll, but this time, it would only piss Welsh off. “Either doing this will force the real culprit’s hand, or it is something spooky, and we’ve saved the day. Either way, problem solved.”

Welsh looked at Fraser. “Ray is correct,” Fraser said. “We plan on ‘leaking’ the news, with the intention of drawing the guilty party into the light. Worst case scenario, Mr. Shane is able to continue his work, un-harassed as we continue to search for the perpetrators.”

Welsh didn’t say anything for a long moment, then he peeled back the wrapper on the antacids, and popped two into his mouth. “I want you to be _absolutely sure_ before you go ahead with this. If we’re going to be helping ghost hunters, I want to have the bad guy in custody when the Commissioner comes for my ass, you got that?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, “Three bags full, sir. We’ll just—go get on that.” I grabbed Fraser’s arm and he flipped his hat onto his head with a nod, and Welsh just waved us out of his office.

I held onto Fraser until we were well clear of his office, the bullpen, and the station proper. I let him go just as we got to the car, and I stopped on the sidewalk, staring down at my distorted reflection in the finish of the GTO. “We’re really doing this,” I said, quiet.

“We are,” Fraser said, matching my tone, and I knew he could feel it, too—the anticipation, the thrumming just under his skin. “In some ways, it was inevitable.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “Nothings inevitable.” I could see him in the car, too, a red blur, and it was too much. I looked at him straight on; I had to see him clearly.

“Are you sure, Ray?” Fraser asked, and I could see it in his eyes, all the thousand possibilities. The questions unasked, unanswered since the other night, since before then—since I first saw him across the bullpen and had to hug him, had to get close, and I knew what he meant—I could see the line from that moment straight to here, but fuck fate. Fuck. Fate.

“I’m not sure of anything, Frase,” I said, and fuck if my voice wasn’t hoarse. “But I know one thing; Fate ain’t shit. We are who we are, where we are, because of what we choose and who we choose to be. It may seem like there’s only one option, but that’s never true. _We_ choose.”

Fraser looked haunted—wounded. “And do you?” _choose?_ he didn’t say. _Do you choose me?_

I answer him anyway, because sometimes Fraser needs to have things spelled out for him. “I made that choice a long time ago, Frase,” I said, and kept my eyes on him; he had to hear all of this, hear everything I couldn’t say on the sidewalk outside of the station. He must have, because his eyes warmed with an incredulous joy. “Ray,” he breathed, and stepped closer, and fuck, he was going to kiss me right here, in public and everything, and I was going to _let_ him—

My phone rang, and he stopped, shocked, as if he hadn’t been aware of what he was doing. I swore as I tried to pull my phone from my pocket and it stuck on the lining.

“Vecchio,” I snapped, more cross than I should have been, but it was Jenna on the other line, and she was talking before I finished speaking, so I didn’t feel so bad.

“Detective! So good I caught you. I just got the final approval. We’ve got a green light.”

“Great.” I said. “Greatness,” and tried to pull my mind back to the case. “When is the showdown.”

“Tonight,” she said. “It’s short notice, I know, but I figured it was better not to draw it out.”

“No, no,” I said. “Good plan. We’ll head over now?”

“Please,” she said. “I’ll expect you soon,” and she hung up the phone. I looked up at Fraser, who was just barely holding himself together.

“Do not loose that thought,” I said, pointing my finger at him. “I have plans for that thought and I am not missing out because we have to go play _Ghostbusters,_ you got me?”

“I got you, Ray,” Fraser said, and you know what? He really did.


	10. Fraser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So very sorry! I just realized I never posted this! Here's the next chapter!

Now that events were beginning to coalesce, Ray drove us to the Consulate to consult with Diefenbaker. While I most certainly did not want Dief to feel forced to return to such a place as Tyler's Shane's house, I admit to some trepidation about returning without Diefenbaker's support. 

Ray hung back as we entered, standing like a post-punk sentinel by the door. Turnbull was at the desk, and as I approached, I saw Dief's tail sticking out from behind. I cleared my throat, and Turnbull looked up. 

"Sir!" he said, perking up like an overzealous pup. "Welcome to Canada!" 

Oh...Turnbull. 

"Thank you, kindly, Turnbull," I said. "If I may speak with Dief for a moment?" 

"Of course, sir!" Turnbull said--and stood there. 

I ran my thumb over my eyebrow. Turnbull continued to stare. "Alone, Turnbull?" I prompted.

"Of course, sir!" Turnbull said, and stood. "I'll just..." He trailed off, then turned a neat left turn and marched off. I watched him go, and shook my head. Sometimes I wondered about my punishment placement in Chicago, whether I was being punished by being surrounded by those the RCMP considered...odd, of if they truly believed I belonged with them.

I crouched behind the desk. Dief lay with his snout on his crossed paws, and looked up at me. I lay my hand on his head, and scratched behind his ears. He whuffed, and tried to nose at my hand. 

"Diefenbaker," I started, but did not quite know how to go on. "Dief, what I am abot to do--no. What I am..." I stopped, sighed. "Somebody has to put an end to whatever it is that is residing in Mr. Shane's house," I said. "It is, in no more accurate terms, evil, and nobody deserves that." 

Dief whined, and pawed at my knee. _But why does it have to be you?_

"Because," I said, my voice soft as if it could lessen the truth of it. "Like so many things, I think I'm the only one who can." 

Dief whuffed. _If you fail, they'll do far worse than transfer you somewhere they hope you won't cause trouble._

"I must do what is right," I said. "Now, I can't order you to go; you are, after all, your own wolf. If you wish to stay here, I'm sure Turnbull will keep you in the doughnut-filled manner to which you have become accustomed--"

Dief growled, and stood, shaking off my hand and knocking me off balance as he walked past. _If you think I'm letting you go alone, you really are out fo your mind, but I don't have to put up with your sass._ He sat next to the desk and watched as I stood. He pressed himself against my leg, his weight a comfort, and trotted out to be greated by Ray. 

***

As Ray drove over to Mr. Shane’s house, Dief started to whine. I looked into the back with the side mirror, and saw him sitting quietly, Dief’s head on his lap. He stroked Dief’s ears absently—I’m not entirely sure how—as he stared out of the window. I wanted to call to him. I could. Ray knew now, but there was something about his posture, the look I could only just make out in his reflection (he was a ghost! Still, if he could pet Dief, he could have a reflection), and I held my tongue.

He looked like he was preparing for war.

Unsettled, I tried to focus on the difference between Chicago's traffic laws and Ray’s driving—my usual trick to distract myself, but I found not even that could keep my attention.

There was an industrial-style van parked out in front of Mr. Shane’s home, bearing the official logo of _Paranormal Detectives._ Mark stood at the open back door with David, both of them with camera bags slung over their shoulders. Mark had a tripod in his hands, and David was coiling wire around his arm. Jenna walked out of the house as Ray parked, and she waited on the sidewalk for us to leave the car. My father was once again gone, or at least invisible, and Dief clung to my side in a way he hadn’t since he was a puppy.

I crouched in front of him, aware of Ray at my back, scanning the road from behind his sunglasses. Dief whined, dipping his head, and pawing at my knee. “Hey,” I said, quietly, gripping his scruff with just enough force to get him to look at me. “You don’t have to stay,” I offered. He’d been with me through so much, and even in Chicago, he’d never been so far out of his element. He whined. _I already said I would help. I'd never leave you to go into such danger without me_. “I know, I feel the same, but I wanted to give you the option.” 

My knee protested when I stood, and I sighed, suddenly feeling old and beaten up. Ray snapped his gum, and flipped his sunglasses up. Looking down, he scratched behind Dief’s ears absently, as if drawing strength from his presence. It warmed me, and by the time Jenna had crossed the street, we were ready.

Jenna had her arms folded around each other, hugging herself for warmth, even though it was quite mild for Chicago, and she smiled tightly at us. “Detective, Constable,” she greeted us. “It’s good to see you here.”

“We live to serve,” Ray said, and Jenna gave him a weary smile.

“I’m sure,” she said, then. “Everyone’s inside; Mark and David are just about done with the tech, and the others are gathered in the kitchen.” She paused, and then said. “I think it knows we’re here.” 

It was the first she had acknowledged that there was something otherworldly about this house. “What makes you so sure?” I asked as gently as I could.

She looked over her shoulder, as if she expected to see someone there, but Mitch and David had closed up the van and both had gone inside. “Just a feeling,” she said, quietly. She turned back. “That, and it’s about three degrees inside. They’ve gathered in the kitchen because it’s the warmest room in the house.”

“Has anything else happened since yesterday?” Ray asked. Jenna shook her head.

“Not that I’ve been told,” she said. “But Tyler seems to be in a mood, so who knows.” She shook her head. “He’s changed so much since this whole thing began. He used to be much more open.”

It was there, in the tilt of her mouth, the way her fingers pressed into her ribs. “You were lovers,” I said, not unkindly, I thought. Jenna looked at me in surprise, but Ray just nodded as if he’s already known, or, at least, had figured it out when I had.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I guess there’s no harm in it now. We didn’t tell anybody at the time. It’s so clichéd, right? The boss sleeping with his PA, but it wasn’t like that, not really. Still, we knew what people would think…” she trailed off for a moment, frowning.

“What is it?” Ray asked.

“Nothing, it’s just…” she looked back at us again. “Right before it ended, things were a bit strained. I was starting to think he was taking advantage of me, that he didn’t trust me, that he thought I was only after his money. None of it was true, of course, but I remember thinking it. We were both so _angry,_ all of the time. When he ended it,” and here she smiled wryly, “And yes, he ended it. I remember thinking that it was simply proof that we shouldn’t mix personal and private. I went back to being just his PA, but Tyler didn’t go back to being the boss I remember. He kept insisting that he had, but he hadn’t.” She frowned. “He was scared, now that I think of it. The night he ended things. There had been something bothering me this whole time, and I think that was it. He was frightened.” She looked up at us sharply. “You think that _thing_ had something to do with it?”

“Of course,” Charlie said from behind Ray. Ray jumped, and I admit that I, too, was startled. It was unusual for someone to come up from behind me unnoticed. If I didn’t hear them, Dief usually let me know he or she was coming. I looked down, and Dief wouldn’t meet my eyes. I raised my eyebrow at him, anyway. Dief only pulled these stunts when he felt I needed to learn something; I wondered what on earth he could possibly think that I could learn from that.

Ray was glaring at Charlie, his hand still on the butt of his gun. It was a good thing he hadn’t drawn his weapon, but it had been close, as Ray was currently letting Charlie know.

“The fuck is wrong with you?" he snapped. "You don’t sneak up behind an armed man like that; it’s a good way to get yourself dead.” Ray and I both know that Ray wouldn't have shot him, that his reflexes are that steady, but as unsettled as I knew Ray was--it wasn't a bad idea to take precautions. 

“You wouldn’t shoot me,” Charlie said, and the conviction in his voice made Ray scowl harder. “You’ve better control than that, no matter what you’ve convinced yourself to believe.” He looked back to Jenna. “Demonic entities feed off of negative energy. They often create tension in homes, and exploit the anger and misery that comes from it, using it to grow stronger.” Charlie looked over her shoulder to the house, and his eyes grew vacant. “There certainly has been enough to keep it going for years,” he said, quietly. Shaking himself, he smiled at Jenna. “Pushing you away was actually the smartest thing he could have done, considering. It prevented your relationship from souring further, and kept the entity focused on himself.”

My father appeared at my elbow. “That sort of self-sacrifice never works the way we want it to,” he said, in the same strange, somber mood as before, and I nodded. 

“Then it is certainly time to put an end to this,” I said, and my father nodded.

“Good luck, son,” he said. “Go with God.”

Charlie looked over at me sharply, and I wondered for a brief moment if he had heard, or seen, my father, but Ray had jumped on the opportunity for action, and had taken off towards the house. I followed, feeling a tension in the air not unlike when Ray and I boarded the Henry Allen for the first time, knowing we were going into dangerous territory with no backup and no way out.

David had covered two-thirds of the kitchen table with computers, monitors, and other devices that I wasn’t entirely sure of. I could see several microphones, two headphones that shared a passing resemblance to the ones that I had worn when recording with Tracy Jenkins, a small basket of hand-held recorders, and what appeared to be a radio. David himself was half under the table, linking and coiling wires, a third headset around his neck. Mitch had command of the other third of the table, and had rested his portable camera there, along with several wires, and the harness to keep his camera steady. He had set the tripod up by the back door to the kitchen, and was standing next to it, peering through the lens and pressing buttons on a separate device.

Andrea stood next to her brother, had clearly been brushing makeup onto his face while he scowled at the room in general. Her own makeup was heavier than usual, for the benefit of the camera, and her eyes looked wider than normal as she looked to Ray, startled. Mr. Coleman was not present, wise, and Mr. Shane sat in a kitchen chair, a good half-meter from any furniture or person. 

Jenna stepped around me, and picked up her clipboard from the kitchen counter. “Okay, so. First order of business. Detective Kowalski, Constable Fraser. Are you willing to be on camera?”

Ray and I exchanged a look. “The Lieu wouldn’t be pleased,” Ray said, and I nodded. I could only imagine what Inspector Thatcher’s face would look like if I appeared on such a program.

“Preferably not,” I answered Jenna. “The idea is that we are here in case something happens, but that knowledge of our presence would put our investigation in jeopardy.” It was true, to an extent. I hadn’t lied. There was absolutely no reason for Dief to laugh at me like he was. Ingrate.

“Okay, then,” she said. “As long as you stay where the cameras aren’t you should be fine. Mitch,” he looked up. “We’ll start with Tyler outside, giving the opening introduction.” Mitch nodded. “Then, we’ll come back to the kitchen, where Tyler will brief our investigators on what’s going to happen. Then they’ll split up: Tyler and Tim will take the ground floor. Andrea and Charlie will take the second floor, and try to take a reading of the room. Then, halfway through, you’ll switch, Charlie with Tyler and Tim with Andrea. Agreed?”

Everyone nodded, though I noticed that Charlie had no desire to go into that room, and I can’t say I blamed him.

“Per usual, Tim and Andrea will operate the cameras for the first round, then Charlie and Tim for the second. Mitch will stay here with David to help keep an eye on the tech.”

“I am down with that plan,” Mitch muttered, and Jenna, if she heard him, ignored it.

“Okay, so we all know what we’re doing?” The team nodded, even Charlie, though I noticed Ray only crossed his arms, watching the room from behind his sunglasses. “Excellent, let’s begin.”

Jenna led Tyler and Mitch outside to work on the exterior shots, and Tim brushed Andrea off when she tried to fix his makeup once more, stalking off into the other room. After a quick glance at Andrea, Charlie followed Tim. David stilled, watching Andrea out of the corner of his eye as she stood in the middle of the kitchen, as if not quite sure what to do. I moved to stand with her, but Dief got there first, butting his head against her hand, and Ray was there a moment later. He spoke quietly, gently, and Andrea snapped her head up in surprise. I expected anger, Francesca would be angry, but instead she gave him a watery smile and a small nod, and let him lead her to the coffee pot. Ray was always better with dealing with women, despite his protests to the contrary.

I moved to stand with David, who, though still tense, was once again calibrating his systems. I didn’t say anything; I merely stood, and waited. In my experience, it was the simplest way to get someone to talk. After a moment, I reached out and adjusted darkness on monitor two by two degrees, sharpening the focus on the night vision camera.

“Is there a problem?” David said, at last.

“No, no,” I said. “No problem.” David watched me for a moment, then nodded. I waited until he turned back to the screen to say, “Although…Miss Balducci does seem to be quite upset.”

David sighed, sounding far older than he looked. “She usually does these days,” he muttered. I raised my eyebrows, silently encouraging him to go on, and he did. “She and Tim had a huge fight right after this special was delayed the first time. They still haven’t made up.” He licked his lip. “I don’t think they’re going to.”

“May I enquire as to the nature of the fight?”

David snorted. “Sure, since you asked so politely. They were fighting about me, or, rather, us. Me and Andrea. Andrea thought she might be pregnant, I asked her to marry me, and she insisted that we tell Tim. Tim…I don’t know if he was more upset that his sister got knocked up, or that _I_ was the one who did it.”

I frowned, thinking back to the video of the show Ray had shown me. “You seemed quite amiable last season, was that all for the camera?”

David chuckled without humor. “I didn’t think so.” He shook his head. “Turns out you can be friends with a black man until that ‘no good porch-monkey’ falls in love with your sister.”

I lowered my head; to have one’s friends turn on you for such an inconsequential reason, and with such violence-- “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” David sighed. “The worst part is that Andrea lost the baby. I still want to marry her, and she says she wants to marry me, too, but now that there’s not a time limit, she wants her brother to come around first.” He shook his head. “Man, why am I telling you all this?”

“Sometimes it’s easier to confide in someone not connected to the situation,” I said.

David nodded. “Makes some sense, I guess. Still, I wish he wouldn’t get so riled up. If there’s anything I’ve learned from doing this, it’s to not bring any of your own negativity in with you: it makes the investigation too unpredictable.”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “You find paranormal investigation to be predictable?”

He grinned up at me. “It is if you do it right.”

I would have said more, but Charlie re-entered the kitchen with Tim in tow, and an awkward silence descended on the kitchen until Jenna, Tyler, and Mitch came back inside.

Jenna led Ray and I over to the side, out of the shot, and Mitch hefted his camera.

“And…action!” Jenna said, and Tyler came alive. His face was animated in a way that made me feel that, if he wished, Mr. Shane could have a second career on the stage. 

“Okay, here’s the plan,” he said, brining Andrea, Tim, and Charlie in around David. Tim was still slightly flushed with anger, and Andrea’s eyes were rimmed with red, but they were focused, their own personal issues left behind for the camera. “…so Andrea, you and Charlie take the top floor. Tim and I will start down here. You know what to do?”

“We do,” Tim said, firm.

“Then lets get to work.”

Charlie and Tim took a camera and Mitch followed them as they walked out into the foyer and split up, Charlie and Andrea heading upstairs and Tim and Tyler heading off into the downstairs. Dief watched them go and whined low. I put my hand on his head. Once they were gone, Mitch brought his camera back into the kitchen and set it on the tripod. David put his headphones over his ears and watched the screen. Mitch stretched, and sat down next to David, pulling out his own set of headphones. Together, they monitored the action.

From where we stood, I could just make out the screens. Ray wasn’t wearing his glasses, so I wasn’t sure how much he could see, but it also didn’t look as if he was trying to. He kept glancing over his shoulder, then down at the floor where our shadows were cast.

Time passed slowly as the two teams asked questions and, seemed to get no answer. After approximately one hour and forty-five minutes, my father appeared at my shoulder.

“This is no way to conduct an investigation!” He snapped. David twitched, one hand to his headphones. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, and kept my eyes on the monitors. Was something happening in the house? I didn’t hear anything. “How are you supposed to interrogate the suspects if you’re not even sure the suspect is present?!”

“Shh,” I whispered, and David looked over his shoulder, but he couldn’t have heard me, not with the muffling quality of his earpieces.

Jenna walked into the kitchen, and grabbed a walkie-talkie. “Okay, guys, wrap it up. We’re on to stage two. Take five”

“Roger that,” Tim’s voice crackled back though the static. A few moments later, Mr. Shane, Andrea and Tim walked in. Charlie was missing.

I frowned. No one was supposed to go outside. I was moving before I could think, Ray close behind me. The front door was wide open, and I walked through to the front porch. Charlie was staring out into the darkness, smoking a cigarette.

“Mr. Syzmanski?”

“There is something evil in this house,” he said. “And it does not like me at all.”

“You see somethin’?” Ray asked.

Charlie didn’t answer, but he stubbed out his cigarette. “I see many things,” he said at last. “And I’m not fond of most of them.” He smiled at us, tight-lipped. “Come on, we’re about to start,” he said, and led the way inside.

The difference in the house was obvious; an omnipresent weight was thrust upon me the moment I stepped through the door, slamming into my chest. My air left me in a rush and I staggered, struggling and finally breathing in a ragged breath. I was not wanted. 

Ray was at my side in an instant, gripping my arm, his hand braced against my side. He was trembling.

“Fraser,” he cried out, face close to mine and concerned. “Frase, you okay?”

I took an unsteady breath, then another. “Indeed, Ray. I’m fine.” I looked around. Jenna looked startled, was biting her lip. Charles, however, looked gray, and his pupils looked like pinpricks of black.

“It’s awake,” he said, quietly. “And very angry.” He turned and rushed past us into the kitchen, Jenna following close at his heels. Ray held on to me for a moment longer.

“You really okay?” He asked quietly.

“I am,” I said. “Just knocked the wind out of me.” Ray nodded.

“Yeah, I get that,” he said. “Nearly did the same to me, but I saw it coming. Can you walk?” I nodded, and we joined the others in the kitchen.

Charlie had stopped just inside the room, and was looking blank-faced at Mr. Shane. Mr. Shane, for his part, stared blandly back, though there was something almost coy in his expression. Taunting. Mocking. 

I was uneasy.


	11. Ray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay! My wedding is about a month away, and things have been crazy. Here's the next chapter. I have some time today, so I'll try to get this weeks chapter up tonight as well, because I don't think I'll be able to on Wednesday. 
> 
> if you want updates about when things are coming out, or just want to catch me elsewhere, follow me on tumblr! It's my sn dot tumblr dot com!

Jenna smiled up at us as we walked into the kitchen. “Ready?”

Charlie nodded, not looking away from Shane. “Yes,” he said. “I’m ready.” Shane smiled, and I felt my gut react. There was something wrong with this picture, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I opened my mouth; something was telling me not to let them go, something right in front of my face that I just _couldn't see_ but Charlie looked at me and shook his head before following Shane out of the kitchen.

Yeah, like I’m lettin’ you outta my sight. I dodged around Jenna and stood behind David, looking over his shoulder at the monitor.

Fraser appeared next to me, standing by my side the way he always did, and I felt myself settle as my mind focused. He was still pale from before, but when I looked at him, he met my eyes and nodded, with me. It was go time, and the *thing* between us fizzled and popped, and I felt energized. Confident. We've faced ghost ships and pirates, an evil Vodun Bokor runin' a sweatshop, a performance arsonist and grannie spy. Weird cases were our, whaddaya call it, our specialty. Dief whined at my feet and I scratched behind his ears. Couldn’t forget Dief.

“I don’t like the way Mr. Shane was looking at Charlie,” Fraser said quietly.

“You mean like he wanted to eat him for breakfast, yeah I saw that,” I said, not looking away from the monitor. Fraser leaned in, and I could feel him along my left side like a life wire. My heart raced, and not entirely from fear. Then, Fraser frowned, and I snapped back to the monitor.

Shane had the camera pointed at Charlie’s back as they walked up the stairs. Even through the grainy night vision, Charlie looked like he was facing the firing squad.

“I don’t like him going up there alone,” I said.

David leaned in, typing at a few keys. That had Fraser frowning. “What?” I asked, a little testy. I hate being the last to know these things.

“There’s a sound,” David said, voice louder necessary. “A droning, like bees. I’d say it’s the equipment, but it doesn’t change pitch when I change the volume, and it’s only on Tyler’s microphone.”

I looked back at the monitor. Charlie and Tyler had made it to the top of the stairs, and as they turned, the cameras fritzed as they panned over the three shadows on the wall.

Three.

“Mother—” I turned just as the cameras cut out. From above us, Charlie screamed and the door slammed. I ran, Fraser by my side. I didn’t ask what he had seen on the monitor—it didn’t matter. Dief took the turn to the steps tightly, bounding up before us. Taking point. “It’s fucking _in_ Shane—it has Charlie!”

“Yes,” Fraser said, voice even though we took the stairs two at a time. “Ray, be—”  
Fraser flew backwards, knocked off the stairs and up to the ceiling. “Fraser!”

“Ray!” Fraser screamed, but I could barely hear him over Dief’s howling, growling yowls as he was dragged along the ceiling to be swallowed by the shadows.

“Fraser!”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I ran for the room.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

My only chance was to get that thing gone.

Shit. Shit. Fuck!

And pray Fraser wasn’t, like, phased halfway through a wall or trapped in the light with Zelda freakin’ Rubenstein. Shitfuck!

I pounded on the door, screaming for Fraser, screaming for _blood._ Dief was howling, scratching at the door with his claws, gnashing his teeth and looking more feral than I had ever seen him. I shook the knob, kicked the door, _threw_ myself against the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Three seconds. Ten. Thirty. My voice cracked and I beat my palm against the door one, an echoing slap. “Fraser…” I whispered. “Ben,” and closed my eyes against sudden tears.

“What is this? Blubbering?” Snapped an older voice behind me. I spun, and saw a mountie—old and familiar, though I’d never met him before—glaring at me. Jesus Christmas, it was Fraser’s Dad. “I knew you Yanks were soft.” Dief growled, sounding so much like Ben when he was frustrated but wouldn’t admit it. Figured the wolf could see the ghost.

“Hey!” I said, a little belated because, you know, the ghost of Fraser's father, but still--you didn’t throw shit like that around, especially not to your son’s partner.

Fraser’s Dad blinked at me, and for a moment he looked just as surprised. “You can see me?”

“Yeah,” I said, and shook my head. “Look, I don’t get it either, but I don’t really have time for this. I gotta get in here.”

He looked at me for a moment, still a bit spooked, but nodded. “True, true.” He looked at the door, then back at me. “Well, you’re never going to get in like that.”

I rolled my eyes. No wonder Fraser talked about this guy the way he did. “Yes, thank you, that’s really helpful.”

Fraser’s dad snorted. “Just like Benton,” he muttered, folding his arms behind his back. “I was against it at first, you know. Told him as much. A man’s dalliances are one thing, and believe me, I know the temptation that can loom when you’re trapped on the ice with one man for months. I Worked with Buck though some tough times, let me tell you, but it is a man’s responsibility to start a family.” He paused. “With a woman.”

Wow. “Great, yeah. We’ll come back to that—”

Fraser Sr. sighed. “But even I can’t stand in the way of true love.”

“Good, you shouldn’t.” I stopped. _Wait, what?_ “He loves me?”

Fraser’s father held up a hand and I stopped talking. “If you dodn't know that, then maybe you don't know my son the way you think you do."

But I was already shaking my head; I could see it, every little detail. The way Fraser looked at me, the way he looked too me. The nights on the couch, the way I lived behind his mask _with_ him--it was clear as day."

"There you are," he said. "Now go get my son back, and I’ll happily call you my son-in-law.”

“Duly noted,” I said, and he fuckin’ beamed at me.

He about-faced with that heal-click thing Fraser does, and slapped his hand open-palm against the door; the sound echoed in my ears, shuddered through my bones. The door creaked open and Dief nosed at the crack. Fraser sr. turned back to me.

“Goodspeed,” he said. “Nostros mortuus salutantus te!”

“Yeah,” I said. “And a Happy New Year,” and pushed through the door, hot on Dief’s heels.

“Yanks,” I heard him mutter. Then, “I want grandchildren!”

“Talk to my Mum!” I said, and then the door snapped closed behind me and I was in the room. With _it._

*** 

The team had cut the lights for “atmosphere,” so I expected darkness, but instead the fixture was pulled dangling from the ceiling, one bulb lit, exposing a round patch in the middle of the floor and Charlie. He was slumped on his side and looked like he was sleeping, except for the swollen lump on his temple under a sluggishly bleeding cut. Dief went right to him, nosing at his cheek.

Pressed back against the door, I fumbled my glasses free, and pulled my gun. It wouldn’t do any good against _it,_ but a lot of this shit was about belief, and I _believed_ in better safe than sorry. Keeping low, I crouched over Charlie and looked for a pulse.

He stirred when I touched him, and I pulled back. My friend's grandma never liked uninvited touch, and Charlie appeared much the same. “Charlie appeared much the same. “Charlie!” I hissed. “Wake up!”

“Yes, Charlie,” Shane—no, not Shane. The _thing_ in this house--said behind me, and I spun, raising my gun. Dief growled, hackles up, and tensed like he was coiled to spring. I dug my hand in the scruff at his neck and he stilled; as much as I wanted to tear that thing to pieces, I couldn’t risk Dief. Not until we knew where Fraser was. “Do wake up.” Not-Shane frowned and tutted at me, like he was some kind of bond villain. “Really, Detective, do you think _that_ can really hurt me?” he gestured to his chest. “This…bloodbag, sure, but you and I both know that hurting _him_ won’t bother _me_ in the slightest." My tongue felt swollen in my mouth and I tried to swallow, adjusted my glasses and hoped Ben was okay.

“Nah,” I said, channeling Steve McQueen. “I just think it makes me look cool.”

“Cheek!” Not-Shane crowed. “Oh, I do love the spirited ones. It’s so much fun to watch them break.”

The air cracked on “break” and the light bulb flashed and exploded, leaving me—and Charlie—alone in the darkness.

He needed to be up, and it needed to be now.

“Charlie!” I felt around until my hand felt his jacket. I tugged. “Charlie, wake your ass up. We need your mojo!”

“’s not mojo,” Charlie slurred. “’s talent.”

“I don’t care if it’s twirling flaming batons, you need to be awake.” I shoved my gun into it’s holster and fumbled in my jacket pocket for my flashlight. It had gotten caught in the lining where my keys had torn a hole in my pocket, and I heart the fabric tear further as I yanked it free. When Fraser didn’t comment, it really sunk in that he wasn’t there.

Oh, that fucker was gonna pay.

I flashed the light on Charlie’s face and he flinched, but he was also awake and tracking, though one pupwil was definatley blown wider than the other; a concussion. Not good. “Detective!” he protested, and Dief placed a paw on his chest, as if keeping him in place. I shined the light around the room. Nothing. The place was still wrecked—wreched in new ways, even—but there was no sign of Shane. No sign of Fraser.

“What happened?”

“It’s _in_ Shane,” I said. I turned the light on him again, but kept it low. I wanted to see his expression, not blind him. He looked way too calm for the situation we were in. I was starting to regret _not_ shining the light in his eyes, just to rattle him; I wanted him as freaked out as I was.

“I knew you could sense it,” Charlie said, and fuck me if he sounded _vindicated._ Fuckwad. “You’re presence practically screams second sight.”

“My eyes are terrible,” I said. “And that thing has Fraser.” I jabbed my fingers at the darkness, half-expecting to feel them hit something that would give me nightmares for the rest of my natural, but they felt nothing. “Plucked him off the stairs and into the darkness. Some real _Exorcist_ shit, and I am _not_ in the mood to fuck around.”

Charlie’s face fell. “That’s not good.”

“No fucking shit,” I snapped.

“Detective.” Charlie’s voice hardened and I glared at him—he had no right to be hard with me, not when Fraser was gone and I was doing a damned good job of _not_ epically losing my shit. There was no time for my to curl up and weep, no matter how much my hindbrain wanted me to. He cleared his throat and continued in a softer voice. “Carrying on wont help. You said it swallowed Constable Fraser into the darkness, so that is where we will find him.”

For Ben, I’ve swum through sinking ships and jumped through skylights and driven burning cars. I’ve been shot at, attacked with a knife, bitten and bruised.

I’d travel through that darkness for him, too, even though the thought of it turned my guts to water in a way I have never before experienced in my adult life. But you see, the thing is—fear only lasts for so long. You can’t be afraid forever. Sooner or later something shifts, and for me, when I get pant-pissing scared, I get angry.

I was white-hot, boiling rage. That thing thought it could scare me? Thought it could take Fraser and I’d just roll over, belly up? Thought I’d be an easy target? Well you got my blood up now, bucko, and you better get scared of _me_.

I bared my teeth at him and saw Dief do the same. “How?”

“Like this,’ he said, and turned off my flashlight.

 

I didn’t deck him, but it was close.

The darkness was absolute—no light from the door, no light from the window. I couldn’t hear the traffic outside, I couldn’t hear the others in the house—I couldn’t hear the house. The presence was as oppressive and every-fucking-where as ever, but when I turned my light back on and it illuminated _nothing,_ I wasn’t actually surprised.

Horrified, yes. Surprised, no.

“The fuck did you do?” I whispered.

“Hitched a ride,” Charlie said. “We followed it back from whence it came.” The jackass was practically _intoning_ the self-impressed asshole.

“That seems like a terrible idea,” I hissed, my flashlight continuing to sweep, looking for something—an exit, a window, _anything._ “What if we can’t—” Wait…there! Something solid, something red. Dief barked and ran over. “Ben!”

I skittered away from Charlie to Fraser’s side. He was cold, very cold, and unmoving, but he was here, under my hands, and I wasn’t going to let him disappear on me again.

“He’s not here,” Charlie said.

“Not here.” I repeated. “Well then where the fuck is he?”

“The Boarderlands,” Fraser Sr said, stepping out of the darkness. Dief barked a greeting, and Charlie boggled a little bit. “He’s been there before, but things are different now. That,” Fraser Sr pointed off into the distance, searching for the word, “miscreant has taken him to his own warped space. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know.” He sniffed. “They never tell you anything. It’s worse when you’re dead. People just assume you’re privy to things. Damned annoying is what it is.” 

“Who are you?” Charlie asked.

Fraser Sr finally focused on him. “Sergeant Robert Fraser, RCMP,” he said, and nodded at Ben. “His father.” He looked back to me. “Yank, you have to get him out of there. The Boarderlands aren’t like this place, you can’t go there. You’re too alive.”

“Meaning Ben is not, right?”

Fraser sr. gave me a steady look, then said, “He’s lost his bearings. Guide him home.”

I looked down at Ben’s face. “How did he get home last time?”

Fraser Sr sniffed. “That Francesca woman screamed. She’s got a set of lungs for a woman that small.”

I snorted. “Yeah. Tell me about it.” I frowned. Well. If sound worked last time. I took a deep breath and called for Ben.


	12. Fraser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOO! two in half an hour!

Once again, I found myself in the snowy expanse of the borderlands. That I could not quite remember how I came to be here—bar that it was not under my own power—was quite disturbing; that the landscape felt sick disturbed me even more.

The trees were dead, the white crackled remnants of a devastating fire—so many evergreen matchsticks. The snow was gone, too—what little remained was more reminiscent of the deep Chicago winter: the grey-black icy sludge of urban melt. There was no wind. No animal sound. No life—not even my father in his purgatorial half-life.

“Hello?” I called and listened to my voice fall flat. No response. My breath fogged in the air. “Oh, dear.” I thumbed my eyebrow, and paused, looking at my hand. My skin had never been particularly dark, but this place had sapped what little flush my hand had possessed. I looked less like me and more akin to little Evan Fisher, pulled too late from Moose Jaw Lake—my first failed assignment. My first death on the job.

(Why was I thinking about little Evan now? There was something, something my mind was trying to tell me, a piece I was trying to connect and failing.)

Cold can kill just as easily as bullets if you don’t know what you’re doing, and a lifetime’s worth of remote living started my response, even as my mind trailed behind. To stay still is to court death, and she had occupied my dance card for far too long.

Picking a direction, I started to walk, and prayed that I was walking closer to Ray.

The last time I had traveled in the Boarderlands, even when it had felt as if I wasn’t going anywhere, the scenery had changed and shifted, showing me landscapes I remembered from my early life. There were the trails I traveled with Innuqsuq. Here the lake where I had played with Mark. There the clearing where I had camped with Jane. My steps remained even as I traveled, though I lingered here and dallied there.

This time, the locations were not so welcome. There was the cabin, the front door walk still red with my mother’s blood. Here the blind where I had killed my first buck. There the lee where I had sheltered with Victoria. I walked now through what had become a floodplain, the valley that would fill with overflow from the incorrectly built dam that killed herd after herd of carabu—and my Father.

It was both surprising and not to step into Chicago. There was no warning between one location and the next: one moment my boots are covered in ice, the next with ash as I found myself standing in the still-smoldering remains of my apartment building on West Racine. The air was acrid, and a lone fire hydrant spilled itself futilely into the street.

Unlike the first time I had stood amongst this rubble, my hands were empty – I wore no uniform for it had been replaced by blue denims and a red plaid worksheet. I carried no pack over my shoulder nor in my arms. I was alone—no neighbors, no firemen, no Dief.

I walked from the rubble to the streets, through Chinatown (kidnapping, gang violence) and the Club district (the ambassador’s daughter, Christina). I passed banks (the Wheelman, the ghost of Victoria through the snow), and the hospitals (committed for the truth looking for the blue room, laid up with my partner’s bullet in my back), and the warehouses district (running out of time to save the girl). I walked down the street where Detective Gardino was killed. I walked the path around the docks where the Robert McKenzie was birthed. I walked through the park where Herb Calling tried to take justice into his own hands with a baseball bat. I walked through the back alleys where the bokur Gutman ran his sweatshop. I walked through the dark ways where Warfield inflicted his terror. I walked across the train platform, the train itself a ghost to my right. I walked through all the pain and suffering this city had offered me, and my step never faltered, my gaze never wavered.

I passed the consulate. I wasn’t in Serge; it wasn’t where I needed to be.

I passed the police station. I wasn’t in my brown uniform; it wasn’t where I needed to be.

I needed to find Ray, so I headed towards his apartment. Chicago twisted around me as I walked. Every turn took me to a new place, a different place. I was constantly reorienting myself, changing direction, re-evaluating my path. Whoever was in charge of this purgatory did not want me to get to Ray’s.

At last I stopped, and found myself standing at the Inuksuk. Shadowy figures, the first I had seen, walked around me as if I wasn’t there. I folded my hand behind my back and looked up at the “nice pile of rocks,” and missed Ray with a fierce passion. I had been all over Chicago; been everywhere except where he was.

I sighed. “Ray.”

Suddenly, echoing off the skyscrapers, came Ray’s voice. “FRASER!”

“Ray!” I called back, my own voice weak in comparison, but there was a new sound, now; the idling engine of a muscle car. A very familiar muscle car; a black 1067 Pontiac Grand Tourismo Omologato. Ray’s car.

I sprinted for the car, seeing a way out and not wanting this place to take this away from me too. I dove for the passenger seat, as was my custom, and only barely inside, the car took off. I fastened my seat belt—safety first—and looked over to see there was no one driving the car.

“Ray?” I said, startled, and the police radio crackled to life.

“Frase? Ben, izzat you?”

“Ray!” I laughed, overcome with joy. Outside the windows, Chicago blurred as we raced past. “Yes, Ray, it’s me.”

“Oh thank Christ,” Ray said. “Listen. You gotta get out of where you are; follow my voice or something and come away from the light.”

There was a reference there that I was missing, I could tell from his tone, and I promised myself that, once this was all over, I’d get him to explain it to me.

“Well, I am in your car, Ray,” I said.

There was a pause. “You’re in my car?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been walking the streets for hours, and this seemed like a much faster way.”

“Huh.” He seemed to think for a moment. “You drivin’?”

“No Ray,” I said. “I think you are.”

“ _I_ am?”

“Well, it is your car, Ray.”

“Oh. Where we going?”

“Your place, Ray.”

“Sounds good,” Ray said, and the car stopped. I looked outside, and sure enough, we were parked outside of Ray’s apartment. I jumped out of the car and flung myself at the front door, leaping up the steps to his front door. I grabbed the knob, pushed, and—

Ray was sitting on his couch, Diefenbaker sitting with his head on Ray’s knee. Charlie was in the easy chair; they jerked as the door opened as if they had just awoken from sleep. For a long moment we stood there, a strange tableau, staring at each other.

“Ray, why are you sitting in the dark?” I asked, too swept up in my own joy at seeing him to stop myself from asking such a banal question. There was light; Ray was shining his flashlight into my face. “Ray!”

“Frase!” Ray dropped the light as he stood, bounding over his coffee table and stopping just in front of me, grabbing my arm, my shoulders—his hands cupped my face. “Ben,” Ray said thickly, and he swallowed. My hands found his and squeezed.

“I was looking for you,” I said. “But you found me first.”

Ray smiled at me, a quick cocky grin that flashed over honest relief and affection. I would have kissed him, then, had Dief not chosen that moment to run head-fist into my legs.

“Dief!” I was wrenched out of Ray’s hands, forced back against the door, but I couldn’t find my frustration too great as I sunk my hands into Dief’s warm fur and held him as he licked my face. “I missed you, too,” I said, quietly. After a moment, I pushed Dief away gently, and stepped further into the apartment, Ray at my right shoulder. Charlie was looking around the apartment in amazement.

“Mr. Syzmanski,” I said, and he focused on me. “I assume that we are all of us trapped here, in the boarderlands between life and death, and that we need to find a way back to our bodies before anything untoward happens, am I correct?”

“Yes,” Charlie said, “We need to draw that thing out of Tyler, and we can only do that from the physical realm.” 

“Do you know how?” I asked.

Charlie shook his head. “We followed it here, but the odds of us following it out again are slim. We need to find our way back ourselves.”

“And how do we do that?” Ray asked. “One minute we’re in the house, the next we’re in the freakin’ void, and now we’re back in my apartment!”

“Not entirely, Ray,” I said. “This is the boarderlands; it just so happens that this part of the borderlands has been tailored to my mind, so to speak. What looks like your apartment is no more than a safe-space in an ever shifting amalgamation of not-places.”

Ray blinked at me. “I thought we were too alive for that,” he said. 

"We're not fully here," Charlie said. "It's why we can't leave this room to explore; it's also why Constable Fraser had such difficulty getting here. We're occupying a mental space that is also a non-physical space.

"What?" Ray asked. 

I sighed. “We’re in my head,” I said.

Ray looked around. “You know, I always pictured more carabu.” I looked around as well.

“So did I,” I said, and thought. If Ray’s apartment was the safe-space, the “home base” as it were, then what place in Chicago represented a way out?

It dawned on me suddenly, and I nearly slapped myself.

“We need to get to the Consulate,” I said.

“What’s at the consulate?” Ray asked.

“The door,” I said. My father had built a door to the other side in my closet: we just needed to walk through the other way.

“Right,” I said, and moved to stand. Ray leaned back to let me move, but stayed close. “If twere done, best twere done quickly.” I had already been too long out of my body, and I did not like the way I was feeling; frazzled like an exposed wire and weak. “Dief,” I looked down at him. “Do you know the way?”

Dief whined, and then barked. Why don’t I ask my father?

“No, I can’t ask him.” I said. “He’s not here.”

Whine. Are you sure?

I never am. “Understood,” I said, gently.

Dief butted his head against my hand, and with Charlie manning the flashlight, and Ray with his hand on his gun, we walked back out into the mess of Chicago.

As always, Dief was a remarkable guide. He led us unerringly though the streets. Though I had made the walk in the real world several times, and knew the path and the length of time that it would actually take me to traverse such a distance, the way seemed strange; we walked for far longer, as well, and through such weather—one moment it was icy-still, and the next it was blizzard-white. For a while it was sweltering hot, the pavement wavy and the way before us hazy. I closed my eyes against the glare as we walked, and in that moment Dief barked. We were there.

I opened my eyes and the consulate—the second I had been stationed in here in Chicago—loomed before us. There was a vague red shape by the door, a shade of a sentry: myself or Turnbull or both, I did not know. We couldn’t stop to find out, and I lead the others into the consulate. The hallway, grand as it always was, was twice as vast, and the faster we moved, the longer the hallway grew.

At length we paused, and Charlie bent over, hands on his knees. He wasn’t accustomed to running the way Ray and I were. Dief growled at the walls around us.

“We can’t get there this way,” Ray said.

“No,” I agreed. “The same thing happened to me while looking for your apartment.”

“How,” Charlie said, and straightened. His breathing was still heavy, but he was no longer panting. “How did you get there?”

“Ray,” I said. “His car picked me up.”

“My car isn’t going to fit in here,” Ray said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” My father said, and I spun. He stood in the doorway to my office, hands clasped at parade rest. He was wearing his red serge, cut Stetson, and frustrated scowl. “Damn Yanks don’t know their hat from their elbow,” he looked at me “And you’re sure about this one?”

Oh for fucks sake. “Not now, Dad.”

He humphed. “No respect.”

“Uh, Excuse me? Fraser’s Dad? We can’t get to the door. You got any ideas?”

My father looked at Ray in surprise. “You don’t need the door.”

I looked at Ray, who looked at me, bewildered. “We don’t?”

“Of course we do,” Charlie said. “How else are we supposed to get back?”

My father looked at the three of us. “Isn’t is obvious?”

I resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose for all of three seconds. “No, Dad. If it was obvious, we would’t be here anymore.”

“Oh,” He looked around. “You just need to wake up.”

“What?” Ray said, voice flat. “You really giving us the “There’s No Place Like Home” shit? I—“

What Ray was going to say was lost as my father held up his hand and snapped his fingers.

I woke flat on my back, gasping air into my lungs as if I hadn’t been breathing. My vision was dark, and it took a few beats to realize that it was because there was no light, not because he couldn’t see. Ray was slumped over his side, groaning like he did when hungover. Charlie had picked up Rays’ flashlight and was looking for the light. He flipped the switch.

We were back in the room. Charlie turned off the flashlight, the bulb was bright enough. Charlie tried the door, but the knob wouldn’t turn. We were trapped. 

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Ray said.


	13. Ray

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo! three chapters in one week! this is 13 of 14! WE'RE NEARLY THERE! I MIGHT GET THIS FINISHED TONIGHT!

I shook out my arms; my skin felt too tight after being out of my body—and that was yet another thing to add to the “things I didn’t ever need to experience” pile that had been building since my partnership with Fraser began.

Charlie was fighting with the door, but it wouldn’t work. That thing wasn’t going to let us out before it was ready.

Fraser was standing in the middle of the room, head cocked to the side as if he was listening to something. Dief mirrored his pose. “Whatcha got?” I asked quietly, walking over and standing close. Fraser gave off heat like a furnace, and my side felt warm where it pressed close to him.

“It could be nothing, Ray,” he said in that voice that meant it was something, but he didn’t want it to be. “But I’m hearing whispers, and it doesn’t sound like whomever is speaking is doing so in English.”

“Yeah, that’s never good,” I said. Charlie gave up and slumped against the door, banging his forehead once against the wood.

“We have to figure out _something,_ ” Charlie said.

“We will,” Fraser said. “If we all put our minds to it, we will persevere.”

Charlie looked at me like “Is this guy for real?” but I just raised an eyebrow. I’d been witness to too many instances of Fraser’s unnatural luck to question his optimism.

Of course, I've also been there when his luck runs out, but hey; a little blind optimism never hurt anybody. 

Someone banged on the door, and Charlie jumped back. “Charlie? Detective Vecchio? Constable Fraser?” Andrea called through the wood. “Are you okay? The cameras went nuts and the door seems stuck!”

“We’re fine,” I called back. “”cept for the door. Is Shane with you?”

“No,” Andrea said after a moment. “We thought he was with you.”

“He’s not on any cameras,” David said. “And the only cameras not working are the ones in there with you.”

“We’re going to try to break in the door,” Mitch said. “Stand back.”

Charlie backed up almost into me as the door shook with a loud bang.

“No, you idiot,” David said more quietly. “Don’t use your shoulder. Here.” There was a moment then the door shook again, the wood splintering near the latch. A moment later the door burst open and David stepped through.

“Good technique,” Fraser said, and David shrugged.

“Practice,” he said. “My mom locked herself out at least once a week.”

“That’s great,” I said. “But pitter, patter, let’s get outta here, okay? Before that thing comes back.” I shouldered my way through the crowd at the door. The air in the hallway was still oppressive, but it was better _enough_ that I took a dep breath. 

Fraser followed me out, and stopped me briefly by the stairs. “Ray…” he said, then paused as the rest of the team passed us to head down the stairs. I have been the center of Fraser’s focus before, but it never gets any less intense. After a moment he nodded. “Understood,” He said, his voice very quiet. 

“Yeah?” I asked, matching his tone. My voice cracked. “You wanna explain it to me?”

His mouth quirked up in one of those rare smiles, the honest wry ones that proved Fraser was just as much of a bastard as I was. “You said ‘later.’”

“Later?” When the fuck did I say—Oh. I shouldn't be surprised; Adrenalynne and near-death experiences seemed to really turn Fraser's crank. Luckily for the both of us, they turned mine as well. “Fuck later,” I said, and pulled his head to mine.

Fraser—Ben. Ben managed a snarky, “yes, Ray,” before I kissed him, hot, hard, and fast because we had no _time_ and there was so much I wanted to say, wanted him to know. I let him go after not long enough at all, and he looked dazed. Heh. I may not have his looks, but I _got_ the skills. He grinned, that blinding happy smile that was so rare. You know the one, the one that showed off that crooked tooth. “ _Yes,_ Ray.”

“Good. Greateness,” I was grinning, too “Now let’s go exorcize us a demon so we can go home and make this official.”

“Indeed, Ray,” Ben stepped back, and he let me see the Fraser half-mask slip back on over his features. “After you.”

I was jazzed up as we tore down those stares, everything singing though my blood: demon Shane, astral projection, nearly loosing Ben before I ever really got him, that fucking _kiss_ \-- we strode through the door of the kitchen side by side like Butch and Sundance. 

Oh, yeah. Shake, deamon, shake. 

“Okay, David,” I said. “Is Shane on any of the cameras?” Fraser went to stand with David, and I went to raid the kitchen cabinets, who knows what might turn out to be useful. (I had a vague memory of my mother’s nanna from when she came to visit soon after we moved into the house I grew up in; my parents had gone out and she’d offered to babysit her little ones. As soon as my parents were gone she’d lit what looked like a green cigar and walked around the house, blowing smoke everywhere and chanting under her breath. My brother had rolled his eyes and watched television, but I had followed her around. ‘Remember, Stanley,” she had said in her heavily accented English. ‘Sage to purify. Salt to banish. Rosemary to protect. You understand?’ I had parroted it back to her. When my parents came home that night they had complained about the smell, asking if she had burned dinner. She had simply shrugged, and tapped the side of her nose at me when they weren’t looking. Come to think of it, she had been friends with my friend's nana. Huh. The things you learn.)

“What areas aren’t covered by the cameras?” Fraser asked. David shrugged.

“There’s a lot,” he said. “This is an old house. There are blind spots in each room with a camera, of course, and there aren’t any in here, of course. We didn’t film his bedroom, most of the downstairs, or the basement. Really, we stuck to places where he said he’d felt things before.”

“He’s in one of the dead zones?” Andrea asked, and we both winced at her phrasing.

“Essentially,” Fraser said. “It’s the only logical explanation. Let’s assume he’s not hiding in the corners behind a camera.” Finally, I found the spice cabinet. Pepper, paprika, chili flakes. “How many rooms would we need to search?” Cardamom, thyme, rosemary—ooh, Rosemary.

“Five, including the basement,” Jenna said.

Sage—ground, shit. Does he have—yes! Whole leaf dried sage.

“So we need to split into groups,” Fraser said. “And flush him out. We can prepare the living room.” And…salt. Table salt, but still. Maybe he had some rock salt hidden away. Probably in the basement.

“Prepare for what?” Timmy asked, and I rolled my eyes.

“For the exorcism,” I said, and slammed the cabinet door shut. Fraser looked at my finding—rosemary, sage, and salt, some storm candles—and nodded. I looked around the group. “Would anybody happen to have some holy water on them?”

The team looked at me blankly and I sighed. Charlie raised a hand. “I have in my car,” he said. “A Bible, too.”

“Great,” I said. “Go get it. Take Dief.”

Dief whined at me. “He needs it more,” I said, quietly. “Be quick.”

Charlie and Dief left the kitchen to get the rest of the supplies. “The living room needs to be cleansed and ringed with salt,” Fraser handed the container to Jenna. “If you would.”

“I’ll go with you,” Andrea said, and the two women went to the living room.

“We’ll have to be careful,” I said. “We’re hunting something that is _actively_ hunting us. It will use everything it can to keep us from getting hold of it, so we have to—“

Jenna screamed, something shattered, and I jumped, hesitating just long enough for Fraser to leave the kitchen before me. Charlie joined us in the hall, carrying a worn leather bible and a small squirt-bottle.

Andrea curled un in the corner of the room, hand pressed to her head and the remains of a porcelain vase were scattered at her feet. Tim ran to her side, and though she hesitated at first, she leaned into his touch. I couldn’t tell if she was bleeding, but she was breathing heavily and staring at the center of the room where not-Shane held Jenna aloft by the neck.

Jenna struggled, clawing at not-Shane’s grip, but it held her easily with one hand. It was grinning, baring it’s teeth, and cocked it’s head to the left, like it was studying a specimen of bug.

Fraser was off in a flash, running towards him shoulder first and ready to tackle. I was after a moment later, and when Fraser impacted with not-Shane, I was there to catch Jenna. Mitch and David ran to help Fraser, who was having a hard time ducking not-Shane’s fists, and flew back into the air with luckly strike, to land on the couch, knocking them, David, Fraser, and the couch, over backwards. Charlie ran forward and pressed a purple cloth to not-Shane’s head. He screamed, the sound scratching my ears, and fell back, unconscious.

“Quick,” Charlie said. “Let’s tie him up.”

I helped Fraser up, once Cherlie and Mitch had manhandled not-Shane into a seat, Fraser cuffed him to the chair twice over, with his cuffs and with mine.

“What now?” Timmy said.

“Now, we get this thing out of Tyler,” Charlie said, and opened the book with one of those ribbons that come attached to the fancier hardcovers. “Everyone, I need you to stand in a loose circle around him. Hold hands, and do not let go. The circle must not be broken."

Fraser took my hand and I squeezed, then reached out and took David’s hand. David took Andrea, who had Timmy on her other side. Timmy grabbed Mitch, who grabbed, Jenna, who completed the circle with Fraser. Charlie stood in the middle and faced not-Shane. He held the squirt bottle upright, and started to recite:

“In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Most glorious Prince of the Heavenly Armies, Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us—“

Wind flicked at my hair, pulled at my clothes, and not-Shane opened his eyes. He screamed, an inhuman rallying cry that drowned out Charli’s voice, through Charlie continued to recite.

“…Pray therefore the God of Peace to crush Satan beneath our feet, that he may no longer retain men captive and do injury to the Church. Offer our prayers to the Most High…”

not-Shane panted, head lolling on his neck as he looked around the circle. I met his eyes and saw the blackness of the abyss. I felt faint, and it was only the tightness of Ben’s grip on my hand that kept me anchored to the moment.

Charlie raised his bottle higher and began the rite proper.

“In the Name of Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, strengthened by the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God, of Blessed Michael the Archangel, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and all the Saints. and powerful in the holy authority of our ministry, we confidently undertake to repulse the attacks and deceits of the devil.”

 **You will all burn** not-Shane growled. **I will tear the very foundations of your souls asunder.**

“We drive you from us, whoever you may be, unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions, assemblies and sects. In the Name and by the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ, may you be snatched away and driven from the Church of God and from the souls made to the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Divine Lamb”

**Your God had forsaken you; he has left you here to rot, and you will rot with me.**

Charlie flicked not-Shane with the holy water, and not-Shane wailed, his face bubbling and sizzling, flesh peeling away from his teeth, his eyes, as he burned.

“Most cunning serpent, you shall no more dare to deceive the human race, persecute the Church, torment God's elect and sift them as wheat. The Most High God commands you, He with whom, in your great insolence, you still claim to be equal…” Charlie let loose another few drops. “God the Father commands you. God the Son commands you. God the Holy Ghost commands you. + Christ, God's Word made flesh, commands you…” 

**I am surrounded by sinners. Liars. Cheats. Fornicators! Sodomites! The Unclean and the Unworthy! The stained Children of Cain! Yours is the fate of fire and flies!**

Charlie raised his voice at last, sounding out the final prayer. “Deign, O Lord, to grant us Thy powerful protection and to keep us safe and sound. We beseech Thee through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen. V. From the snares of the devil, R. Deliver us, O Lord. V. That Thy Church may serve Thee in peace and liberty: R. We beseech Thee to hear us. V. That Thou may crush down all enemies of Thy Church: R. We beseech Thee to hear us.” Charlie sent out a great stream of holy water, and not-Shane writhed, but when the smoke cleared, he still stared back at us from Shane’s face, ruined though it was.

 **You’re going to have to try harder than that** Not-Shane growled, and began to laugh.

“Try this, you son of a bitch.” Fraser Sr appeared between Charlie and not-Shane, gun aimed straight at not-Shane’s forehead.

“Dad!” Frase cried out, surprised, and Fraser Sr. fired. Not-Shane’s head snapped back, and the chair fell over backwards. Fraser Sr. nodded and re-holstered his gun. He turned to Fraser, and frowned.

“Well, what are you waiting for? I can’t do everything for you.”

Frase blinked. “Can’t do—Dad! What did you do?”

“My duty,” he said. “I brought this miscreant to justice.”

“I don’t believe this,” Andrea said. “A fully body apparition.”

The Frasers paused, then turned in unison to look at Andrea and say,

“You can see him [me]?”

“I can, too,” David said. Mitch had his eyes closed, and was slowly shaking his head. Tim was staring, open mouthed, and Jenna had her eyes firmly on Shane, who groaned. He was coming to.

Shane opened his eyes and they were his own. He looked around at the circle, confused. “What happened?” he asked. “Did I miss something?” I couldn’t help it, I laughed, startling Fraser and setting him off. I looked for his father, to see if he shared in the joke, but he was nowhere to be seen. Probably for the best. I’m sure I’m gonna see _him_ again.

Jenna started to laugh as well, though a bit hysterically, and Charlie let us know that we could break the circle. If I held Fraser’s hand for a little bit longer, that was nobody’s business but my own.


	14. Fraser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT! This is the end. There is no more. Man, this was a crazy ride, and while I'm happy to see it finished, I'm a bit sad to leave it. I hope you all enjoy the ending as much as I enjoied the writing.

It was rather…anti-climactic. Many of Shane’s physical wounds healed rather fantastically, and when Ray and I righted the chair so that Ray could unlock the handcuffs, Jenna swept in to tend to his immediate care.

David had gone to comfort Andrea, and Timothy watched with a rather sour look on his face. He certainly didn’t look like one who’d just witnessed an exorcism.

I turned to Ray, who was listening to Mitch moan about not getting any of this on camera, and subtly gestured to Timothy. He followed my gaze and frowned, then nodded. He would take care of it.

I approached Charlie as he was gathering to leave. “That was a Catholic exorcism,” I said, and he pasued. “Vatican law states it must only be said by a priest.”

“Well, desperate times,” Charlie said and slammed his trunk shut.

“And desperate men?” I asked, and Charlie smiled bitterly at his case.

“Something like that.” He straightened, and held out his hand. “Good luck, Constable,” he said.

“Thank you, kindly,” I said, and shook his hand.

“He didn’t do anything. I’m the one that shot the damn beast,” My father griped from behind my left shoulder. I bit back my response, but saw Charlie’s eyes flick over my shoulder.

“My condolences on your father’s passing,” he said, then smirked. “And my sympathies.”

“What?" My father barked. "What was that supposed to mean?”

“Indeed,” I said, and waved goodbye.

“Benton! What did he mean by that?” My father's demanding questions followed me. Dief was waiting for me in the kitchen, where the team had left their things. From the sound of his bark, he had found something interesting. It wouldn’t do to make him wait. “Benton!”

***

Lieutenant Welsh put down the case file and rubbed at his eyes. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Pray, do tell me what it was that I just read.”

“The casefile?” Ray said with a hopeful lilt.

Welsh leveled Ray with a glare. “Oh, I sincerely doubt that Detective.”

I cleared my throat. “If I may, sir?”

Welsh waved a hand. “May away, Constable.”

“Well, you see, sir. Mr. Shane _had_ been receiving hate mail for some time, mostly from Timmothy Balducci, who blamed Shane for the strained relationship between himself and his sister over her relationship with the audio tech, David Thompson.” I paused for a minute. “Honestly, sir, the logic of that connection escapes me, but that is neither here nor there. What matters is that Timmothy believed Mr. Shane was responsible, and he was going to make him pay.”

Ray jumped in. “It helped that Balducci was a recovering alcoholic, who found religion through his twelve-step at, quess where?”

“The Eastside Evangelical Mission,” Welsh muttered. “Wonderful.”

“Exactly, sir,” Ray said. “When we confronted Balducci over the contents of his backpack—some letters written on the same typewriter, red spray-paint, a large upholstery knife—well, he sang like a bird, sir. Pointed fingers at some key members of the EEM who are now facing charges ranging from harassment to hate crime.”

Welsh nodded. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer group,” he said. “And Mr. Shane?”

Ray and I exchanged a look. “This is where it gets tricky, sir,” I said. “It turns out that, in addition to being harassed by the EEM, Mr. Shane was legitimately haunted—well, I believe the correct term is oppressed. He was being oppressed by a demonic force that took advantage of Mr. Shane’s already fraught life. We do not know at this time if this entity was sent to him, or if this was simply a matter of coincidence.”

Nodding, Welsh sighed. “That’s what I was afraid you’d say. You can’t put this in your report, you know. Especially not since it will be reviewed by the commissioner.”

“Of course not, sir,” Ray said. “We’ll fix those typos right away, sir.”

“Good.” Welsh handed the file to Ray. “See that you do.” He looked back to his desk, clearly dismissing us, and I held the door for Ray and I to “book it.”

The afternoon was lost to the towering pile of paperwork on Ray’s desk, from this case and from others that he had let pile up as our path took us further from the realm of the incorporeal. I helped where I could, of course, taking over the majority of the typing as Ray dictated over my shoulder. It was a skill I was proud of—the ability to edit at one-hundred words per minute—and by the time we came to the end of Ray’s shift, his inbox was empty.

Ray scratched his head and blinked at the lack of papers. “Huh,” he said. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those things completely empty? Paperwork’s like tribbles—don’t feed ‘em after midnight.”

I hid a smile. “Beg pardon, Ray?”

Ray grinned at me. “Don’t even,” he said. “You know exactly what I was referencing. We watched _Gremlins_ after that whole thing with The Nautalus, and I know for a fact you marathoned Classic Trek when you caught that flu you deny you had.”

“I didn’t have the flu—“

“You spent two weeks near-unconscious on my sofa, yes you had the flu.” Ray glared at me, and I glared back, but it didn’t last long. I’m afraid I broke first, softening my expression and conceding the point. He softened as well, and I’m afraid the result was the two of us staring, rather lovestruck, into each other’s eyes.

“Hey, Ben,” Ray said, quiet and warm.

“Hello, Ray,” I said, matching his tone.

Ray looked down, licked his lips, then looked up at me through his eyelashes. He had to know what he was doing to me; it had to be deliberate. “Come home with me?” he asked.

“Yes, Ray,” I said, and stood, grabbing my hat. “Yes.”

***

Ray drove me to the consulate so I could pack fresh clothing for the next morning (“Trust me,” he had said, and I do, so I did), and I quickly found myself at a loss inside my office/bedroom. Dief curled up on my cot, and barked to assure me that he would be all right where he was until I came into work the next morning. I blinked at him, then smiled. “I’ll ask Turnbull to take you for a walk later” Dief barked, the terms acceptable, and it was the impetus I needed to move. Quickly changing out of my uniform, I grabbed my duffle and began filling it on autopilot—clothes, toiletries—and stopped, looking about the room.

“So. You’re really doing this?”

My father stood next to the closet door. I nodded at him. “Yes. We are.”

He nodded as well, and seemed at a loss for words. It didn’t last long; my Father never was silent for long. “I was against it, you know.”

I frowned. “I suspected as much, but there’s little you can do about it. You’re dead.” I turned back to my bag and set about fasting the ties with sharp jerking tugs.

“So you keep reminding me.” He said. He picked up a picture of my mother and looked at it for a long moment. “Still. The Yank performed admirably under pressure. And he got you home safely.” My father sniffed, putting the frame back down. “Tell my son-in-law that this doesn’t let you off the hood for grandchildren.”

“What?” I turned around, but he was gone. “Unbelievable,” I said. "You pay, and pay, and pay..."

Turnbull was still at his desk when I walked out of my office. “Turnbull, good.” I said. “I have some things to attend to this evening, would you mind terribly walking Diefenbaker later?”

“Not at all, sir,” Turnbull said, and tapped the side of his nose. “caelum nihil ultra." I blinked at him, but he just stared back at me benignly.

“Thank you, kindly,” I said, and left. Ray raised his eyebrow at me when I got back into the car.

“Turnbull?” He asked.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah,” Ray laughed. “Turnbull causes a little wrinkle right here,” he touched his own forehead right between his eyes, “and your eyes kinds glaze over.”

“I can think of better reasons for my eyes to glaze over,” I said, my mouth moving before my brain could catch it, and Ray’s eyes went dark. My own must look much the same; I felt so warm—

“Oh yeah,” He said. “Me too,” and he pulled back out into traffic.

I admit that I don’t remember must of the drive back to his place, my mind focused wholly on Ray—his scent, the way his pulse jumped in his neck, the anxious tapping of his fingers on the wheel. He was flushed, breathing rapidly, and I knew I was no better. I felt that at any moment I could go up in flames, like so much old paper.

Ray parked, I knew because the car stopped. I followed him into his building, close at his heels, and was on him the minute the door closed behind us, right in the hallway. I tugged his arm and pushed him back against the wall, my bag falling to my feet as I finally, finally, kissed his mouth.

He tasted of his coffee—bitter and sweet with a hint of fruit—and of Ray, and I pressed closer, wanting him in every sense. Ray gasped when his back his the wall, stunned to compliance, but he didn’t stay that way for more that a second—just enough for me to get a taste of him before he was kissing back, matching me as equal yet again.

Far too soon, Ray pulled back. I followed, but he had twined his fingers in my hair and he used his grip to keep me still. “Upstairs,” he gasped. “I want you naked. Up _stairs._ ”

His words hit me deep in my gut and I grunted, but I also backed up, picking up my bag as Ray made for the stairs as quickly as he could, fumbling for his keys. I cased him up the stairs, a euphoria swelling in my chest and I laughed, alive with the sheer joy of it, and Ray grinned over his shoulder at me as he unlocked his door, and I’m afraid I rather tackled him through the doorway.

Ray kicked the door shut with his boot and grabbed my jacket, pulling me closer, down onto him further as we kissed. He pulled away again, gasping for air, and I nosed my way along his jaw, scraping my teeth against the stubble coating his skin, biting just behind his ear to feel him jerk and hear him swear.

“Fuck!" He grit out. "Ben!”

That…sounded like a great idea.

I pushed up, braced on all fours on top of him. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, Ray, please. Fuck me”

I knew, with Ray’s fire, that he was a passionate lover: Ray threw himself into everything he did. Watching Ray dancing lead me to conclude that he would be a skilled lover. Being a forced spectator to the end of his passion for Stella, I knew he would be a dedicated lover.

None of my knowledge prepared me for what that actually _meant._

His eyes went nearly black when I begged, and then he was moving, using all of his wiry strength to flip me over and I landed hard enough to knock some of the wind from my lungs. Ray tore at my clothes, popping several buttons on my shirt, his hands long past steady, and I reached for him in turn. He batted my hands away with a muttered, “not yet,” so I arched with him to help him strip me bare.

I have been fully naked with less than a handful of people, there being little cause for casual nudity in below freezing temperatures, and little opportunity in Chicago. Still, I had thought I was used to the feeling, the vague embarrassment, the need for slight-of-hand to keep the mind engaged elsewhere. I felt none of that with Ray; when Ray looked at me, I felt hot all over, the only relief where his hands were pressed to my skin at my chest, on my side.

“Ray,” I breathed, and he nodded, as if coming from a trance.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that,” and bent down, licking a stripe up my sternum. My hands reached up and tangled in the fabric of his shirt, in the leather of his holster—he was still wearing his holtser, even as he kissed his way down my abdomen and took me into his mouth.

“Ray!” I cried out, and he backed off enough to mutter a warning about the neighbors. “Oh, fuck the neighbors,” I grit out through my teeth and he hummed with laughter, the vibrations going right through me.

“Oh!” I gasped as I felt it, the electricity in my spine, the rising pulse of pleasure. “Ray, I’m going to—“ I cut myself off with a gasp, and Ray pulled back, said into the crease of my groin;

“Do it. Come for me now, and then I’ll fuck you until you come again.”

“Ray!”

My mind blanked. White. Perfect snowfall, feet deep and untouched by man or beast. Bright white. Blinding.

I blinked away spots to see Ray hovering above me, grinning down at me. His face was flushed, and his mouth glistened. I pulled him to me, chasing the taste of myself on his tongue

God, he was _still dressed._

“Bedroom?” he asked, breathless, as if he read my mind. I nodded.

“Bedroom.”

He scrambled up, locking the door (oh God, we left the _door unlocked?_ ) and helping me to my feet. We wrestled again on the way to the bedroom, my earlier release having done little to quell my desires, I was already hardening again. Inside Ray’s bedroom, I slid my hand down the front of his jeans and felt a matching hardness. Ray’s knee buckled at my touch and we went down onto the bed with a bounce. It was a race to get Ray’s clothes off after that; I tackled his boots and pants while Ray stripped his holster, his shirt, and then he was on me, nipping kisses and love bites and a desire to _play_ and I met him at every turn.

He pinched my nipple, and I licked his floating ribs. He sucked a kiss to my hip, and I bit his collarbone. He rubbed his hardness against me, and I pulled him tighter.

He reached for the bedside drawer, pulled out two condoms and a bottle of lube. He scratched the back of his head. “I guess I missed the boat on the safe-sex talk,” he said.

“I’m clean,” I assured him. “And so are you.”

Ray blinked at me. “How do you know?”

I shrugged. “I may have seen your last physical’s results,” I said. “And you haven’t been with anybody since the samples were taken.”

“How do you know that?” Ray asked, still a bit bewildered.

I just shrugged again. “I don’t want to talk about them,” I said, not wanting to admit to the level of detail I paid to him, and grabbed a condom from his hand. I tore it open quickly, making sure not to tear the latex, and walked forward on my knees. Holding his hip with my hand, I rolled the condom down him in one slow, smooth stroke. His eyes rolled back a bit at that, but he recovered well enough to nod at myself and hold up the second condom. “You want?”

I shrugged. I never liked the feel of condoms, and Ray was right, there was little enough risk here to make the possibility of a wet spot worth it.

“You ever done this before?” he asked, no judgment in his tone.

“Yes,” I said, thinking briefly of the faces in my past. “But not in a long time,” I said. “Before the Depot.”

“Never got this far with a guy,” Ray admitted. “But the prep’s the same for a woman, and _that_ I have done.”

A spike of jealously shot through me. He said “woman,” and I knew the exact one he meant. It wasn’t fair of me, I know; neither of us was without past lovers, but I didn’t want this moment to be about anyone but _us_. I opened my mouth, but there were still, apparently, some things I could not say. I kissed him instead, pouring all my feeling into it, my want, my need, my love. Ray gasped into the kiss and pressed me back. I heard the click of a cap. A few moments later I felt Ray’s fingers, pressing slick against my perineum, and I spread my legs wider for him.

The first finger went in like a promise, the second like a mercy, the third—a boon. My whole world had narrowed down to this moment, to this man, my Ray, as he unwound me from my spool and reshaped me into something new. He drew my legs up against my chest, and my breath came short and my head began to spin, loosening my tongue. I moaned, I whimpered, I gasped. He pulled his fingers free and sank himself deeply, slowly, until we were joined completely. I moaned “Please.” I whimpered “Ray.” I gasped “Love,” and was undone.

Ray followed me over, and I fought to keep my eyes open, to watch his face as he shattered, wrecked, above me.

“Beautiful,” I sighed.

***

Very little changed, after that. Ray stopped denying his sight so much. My father built an auxiliary office in Ray’s utility closet—much to the consternation of us both, as I had finally moved in under the guise of a no longer being willing to use my office as a place of residence. Inspector Thatcher was not quite unhappy to see me leave, though Turnbull shed a tear.

Mr. Shane was no longer haunted by the entity, and the Commissioner thanked Ray and I personally for taking care of the manner quietly.

Several weeks later, we received a thank you letter from Andrea, and a save the date card for her wedding to David. Both are attached to the front of the refrigerator.

Now, however, my empty days and nights are filled with love, my bed with passion, and right now, Ray is waiting for me on the couch, beer and pizza in hand, the announcer on the television is talking about the statistics for the Maple Leafs v Blackhawks game, and everything is as it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * caelium nihil ultra* - literally "The sky has no limit" Turnbull isn't dumb, he's just a little-bit left of center. 
> 
> Thank you all, and Thank you, kindly. :)


End file.
